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TOUR 



THROUGH 

SEVERAL DEPARTMENTS OF FRANCE. 




^ 

^ 



A 

TOUR 

THROUGH SEVERAL OF THE 

MIDLAND AND WESTERN DEPARTMENTS 
OF 

FRANCE, 

JN THE MONTHS OF JUNE, JULY, AUGUST, AND 
SEPTEMBER, 1802. 



With Remarks on the 

MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND AGRICULTURE 

OF 

THE COUNTRY. 



BY 

TH£ rev. w. hughes. 



ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS. 



Sontian: 

Printed by J.* Cundee, Ivy-Lane, 
TOR THOMAS OSTELL, AVE - MARIA - LANE. 

1803. 




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PREFACE. 



XT will presently be perceived, that the fol- 
lowing narrative of a Tour through parts of 
France but seldom visited by Englishmen, 
has little more to recommend it than its 
path " almost untrodden," and the few 
anecdotes with which it is interspersed. In 
fact, it is neither more nor less than a series 
of memorandums and reflections penned 
sometimes upon the road; sometimes at 
the inns upon it, and that it commonly par- 
takes, as will be expected, of pain and plea- 
sure ; of admiration and disgust ; and is tinc- 
tured with the lassitude and feeble exhaus- 
tion of the weary days on which it was 
written, 

2 Nothing 



VI PREFACE. 

Nothing could be farther from the 
writer's mind, than the idea of thus appear- 
ing before the public. When the task of 
stringing his notes together was undertaken, 
his highest ambition was by inserting them 
in that vehicle of monthly amusement, The 
Visitor, to gratify the anxious curiosity of 
friends who were kindly interested in his 
and the adventures of his fellow-traveller, 
and to furnish them with the information 
relative to the present state of France, 
which in common with the rest of man- 
kind, they w^ere anxious to obtain ; but, 
when the manuscript was presented to the 
editors of that popular work, it was re- 
commended to bring it forward in its pre- 
sent form, as the best means of promot- 
ing the effect intended. Nought there- 
fore remained but to disappoint those to 
whom he had pledged himself — appear 
thus before the world, or transcribe as ma- 
ny copies as were requisite for the accom- 
modation of a numerous connection ; a 

task 



PREFACE. Vll 

task which he was by no means disposed to 
undertake. Averse a$ he is to the toil of 
transcribing his own productions, he would 
however once more have toiled through 
the following pages, corrected his plan, 
and rendered the construction of his sen- 
tences less faulty, had not the immediate 
return to the continent which he contem- 
plates, rendered it utterly impracticable : 
not that he is by any means assured that 
the result would have been worth the pains, 
— The creature of a day will live but a day, 
trick it out as gaily as you will — wishing 
onlv to inform and amuse an affectionate 
and much loved circle, facts alone will be 
demanded of him. If those facts, unartifi- 
cially detailed interest their feelings, and 
with pleasure fill up an idle hour, he is ac- 
quitted — if others read them with approba- 
tion, he is more than paid. Of the draw- 
ings, he has only to regret that they were 
not finished with a more masterly hand ; 
to every rule of perspective he is an utter 



stranger. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

stranger. From his rude sketches* female 
friendship has however formed what is ful- 
ly sufficient to develope his ideas : had he 
held a more expert pencil, he would have 
enriched the volume with many other 
equally interesting representations. 



LOXDOy, 
MARCH, 1S03. 



TOUR 



THROUGH 

SEVERAL DEPARTMENTS OF FRANCE. 



IN order to form an opinion of the manners of 
a people, it is necessary that we reside amongst 
them : the character is ascertained by a variety of 
circumstances of which the hasty passenger can 
form no conception ; and not unfrequently it hap- 
pens, that as soon as he lands upon a foreign 
shore, he lifts up his hands in admiration, and is 
astonished at the inconceivable folly and absur- 
dity of customs, which, ere he is six weeks 
older, he finds are the result of long experience 
and observation, and most expressly adapted to 
the circumstances of the people who adopt them; 
for this reason my journal is not to be considered 
as containing an exact account of every thing 
which occurs as it absolutely is, but as it appeared 
to me. I shall detail the occurrences which took 
place, with the impressions made upon my mind, 

b and 



2 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

and leave it to experience to teach me how far 
my sensations were fastidious, and how far they 
were not. 

June 15, at seven in the evening, about twen- 
ty of us took our stations in a little cock-boat, 
at Brighthelmstone ; and, after an hour's row, 
got safely shipped on board the Lark, bound to 
Dieppe. Many of us had never been at sea be- 
fore, and, of course, our expectations of the 
storms and tempests, shipwrecks, and hair-breadth 
escapes, which always overtake us in our first voy- 
age, ran very high. Happily, we passed the 
night without alarm ; and, at break of day, found 
ourselves, to our very great mortification, just 
under the English shore still : the calm was perfect ; 
it was impossible for invention itself to make a 
storm of it, or to extract a single circumstance 
from the occurrences of the night, with which to 
fill the budget of gaping wonder ; it being im- 
possible to command the winds, we had nothing 
to do but to submit. About the close of the se- 
cond evening, we found ourselves nearly half-seas 
over; and., with all due reverence for the man- 
dates of inevitable necessity, we retired a second 
time to our cots---I had almost said to our coffins, 
for a ship's bed and a coffin are nearly of the same 
size and construction ; but, ere the sun was well 
risen (a sight which, by the bye, is glorious when 
viewed from the deck in calm weather) we were 

roused 
4 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 3 

roused from our slumbers by the gabbling of the 
French pilots, whose sharp-sighted poverty had, 
descried us, and were got along side: in a few 
moments, a meagre-faced, shrivelled old fellow, 
with a woollen night-cap on his head, and a short 
stinking pipe in his mouth, jumped on board, 
and seized the helm ; had we been at Billingsgate 
the clamour would have been less. The tide had 
dropped ere we arrived upon the coast ; of course 
we had nothing to do but to cast anchor ; and, 
the wind freshening a little, it will be concluded 
that the motion of the ship became very accept- 
able to those who were already qualmish and in- 
commoded by the length of the passage. How- 
ever, we all contrived to leave the settling of our 
accounts to some future opportunity; and, at the 
appointed signal made for the Pier-head, it was 
impossible not to notice the awkwardness of the 
French seamen as they worked the vessel into 
harbour. The pilot felt it; and, the expression 
of his smoke-dried distorted visage, as often as 
they ran it aground, would have been amusing, 
had we not apprehended, from the agony which 
his features expressed, some real danger. The 
first glance of the French coast presents us with 
nothing which is very interesting: the harbour of 
Dieppe is fine and well situated ; in war, it generally 
fits out a great number of small privateers, which 
annoy the trade of the Channel; and was for- 
merly, on this account, bombarded by the com- 

b 2 bined 



4 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

bined English and Dutch fleets, and completely 
demolished; the piers having been unhappily 
neglected during the convulsions of the revolu- 
tion, are gone to decay; the channel is choaked 
with sand and gravel, and it may be doubted 
whether it be possible to restore it to its pristine 
state. The aspect of the town, as you approach 
it, is deplorable, though completely uniform in 
consequence of its comparative modern erection, 
and laid out in forms very far superior to those 
commonly seen in France ; yet, wretchedness is 
painted on every feature; the houses have, appa- 
rently, been untouched by the hand of repair 
from their primitive erection ; their fronts are 
blackened by neglect, like a smelting-house ; the 
windows, which reach from the deling; to the floor, 
and are furnished with balconies of wrought-iron, 
once elegant, are generally garnished with old 
stockings, old shirts, night-caps, and children's 
linen, and, in short, all the contents of the 
laundry; spiders, and vermin of a hundred sorts, 
have tenanted, undisturbed, every corner; and 
the accumulated filth of generations, long since 
mouldering in the dust, almost renders the glass 
impervious: in short, the tout-ensemble is po- 
verty in the extreme. To account for all this, 
we must look to a higher source than the revo- 
lution. It is, by no means, the effect of any 
thing modern; it is the result of abuses which 
flourished under the Bourbons; but, for the op- 
pressions 



m 

A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 5 

pressions of the antient government, there is no 
reason to be assigned why an English port should 
bear the aspect of comfort, a French port the 
aspect of misery. Dieppe is, as we before said, 
well situated; its quays are excellent; its har- 
bour is spacious; and many a port in England 
far inferior to it in accommodation ; carries on a 
trade which scatters blessings upon its inhabitants : 
but, on the one, liberty has planted its standard 
—the other crouches the victim of despotism. 
Since the peace, the solemn stillness which, for 
many a tedious year, had reigned in its custom- 
house, its docks, &c. has given place to bustle 
and activity. The first English packet which came 
over was welcomed with shouts of joy; and the 
scarcity of corn which, in the earlier part of the 
year, prevailed over France, has brought to it 
fleets of English, Swedish, and Danish vessels, 
so that the port seems now to be tolerably occu- 
pied, and devoted to the purposes which nature 
contemplated in its formation; and, ere long, 
we may hope to see some taste for cleanliness in- 
troduced also; the furniture and floors of the 
houses disrobed of their accumulated coats of 
filth; and neatness, comfort, and propriety suc- 
ceeding to squallid wretchedness. The pave- 
ment of the streets is execrable, and ill contrived ; 
a Frenchman has not yet conceived the idea of a 
public sewer beneath the surface of the earth; 
one grand receptacle of filth is hollowed out along 

b 3 the 



D A TOIR THROUGH FRANCE. 

the midway of every avenue, with collateral 
branches to right and left, connecting with the 
kitchen, &c. of every house, if they have one 
(which is very seldom the case), of course, as 
you drive along, if you are in a French equipage, 
your joints are liable to dislocation every moment: 
if you are in your own, you are tossed about like 
a cock-boat upon a rolling sea, and may think 
yourself extremely fortunate if you escape through 
the barrier without a broken head, or fractured 
spring. 

Of the public buildings and erections, I have 
little to say, being in too much haste to examine 
whether there were any worth attention or not. 
The promenade, on the ramparts, is beautiful; 
in the middle of the town there is a salt spring, 
possessing, I presume, the same diarhaetic qua- 
lities with other springs of the same taste ; other 
furiosities I believe there are none. 

Having spent the afternoon and night at Di- 
eppe, to recruit the fatigues of our voyage- --on the 
1 8th we pursued our journey towards Rouen, but 
in a mode which the pencil of Hogarth alone can 
describe: the post-horses being here farmed by 
the government, no one is permitted to furnish 
the traveller with relays but the constituted post- 
master. You must take, therefore, the horses 
and the harnesses which he is pleased to give you ; 

and, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 7 

and, as long as you are cantered along, at the 
rate of six miles an hour, without breaking your 
neck, it is supposed that all things are well, 
and you have no right to complain— -in fact, 
you may as well be silent. The horses may be 
spavined, broken-winded, stumbling, lean as 
Rosinante, and chaffed, and galled from head to 
tail, it matters not; with all this you have no- 
thing to do. His business is not to humour your 
fastidiousness, but to get you to the end of the 
stage; and, this being accomplished, he, or ra- 
ther his agent, holds up his hand for the " Ar- 
gent," which the government has authorised him 
to demand, though, it must be confessed, that 
the stranger has seldom reason to complain of the 
cattle; they are rough as savages, and all of the 
masculine gender; but they are alert, and drag 
him along with safety and with speed. With the 
Voiture the post-master has no concern, unless you 
have brought a carriage with you from England. 
The Aubugiste furnishes you with one himself, 
or procures one for you at the remise : of course 
your accommodation in this respect is, in some 
degree, proportioned to the price you are dis- 
posed to pay. I say in some degree ; for no mo- 
ney can obtain for you an equipage, comparable 
in neatness and convenience, to an English ped- 
lar's cart ; take the most execrable of the Brent- 
ford stages, it is elegant, it is comfortable, com- 
pared to a French diligence ; for this reason, no 

b 4 English 



8 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

English family should think of travelling in France 
without taking over an old post-chaise with them: 
to introduce a good one upon the French roads 
would be a sin against common-sense, and only 
serve to poison the pleasures of the excursion. 
A Frenchman, from habit, can bear shocks and 
convulsions which would dislocate the vertebrae 
of a Sampson. When you have fixed upon your 
vehicle, the passengers, the trunks, the wheels 
are all counted ---size and weight are totally out 
of the question ; had you Bright of Maldon, or 
an infant at the breast, for a fellow-traveller, you 
must have a horse for each; in short, you must 
pay for as many horses as you have passengers, 
whether in the carriage, behind it, or on the box, 
together with the prescribed number of posti- 
lions, if they attend you or not; all of which is 
expressly stipulated in the ordonnances of the 
government. # Having arranged how many horses, 

how 



* On the post-roads travellers have to pay twopence 
halfpenny per mile for each horse, and one penny farthing 
per mile to each postilion, who is forbidden to demand, or 
receive more, though tenpence is generally given; and, should 
he feel himself dissatisfied, insult, or give umbrage to the 
passenger, in any respect, there is to be found, at every 
post-house, a book, regularly paged and lined, which the 
post-master is compelled to produce on demand. In this 
book you enter your complaint, and the inspector-general, 
when he traverses the departments to superintend and regu- 
late 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 9 

how many postilions ycu are to pay for, at the 
appointed hour your voiture comes to your door 
—but such a cumbersome piece of antiquity as 
would, long since, have been consigned, on the 
English side of the water, to the galleries of the 
British museum, or to the flames. 

Two parties of our fellow-passengers went oft 
immediately after landing; the one in a Berlin, 
the other in a Cabriolet \ and, though surrounded 
by hundreds of the natives, some gazing with 
curiosity, others tweaking our elbows, and, with 
weazand-distorted countenances, miserable marks 
of poverty, begging " le noble captained and the 
" tres belle demoiselle pour I 'amour de dieu" to 
pity them; and, promising how ardently they 



late the affairs of his office, will not fail to punish an offence 
according to its degree ; for this reason, and to preserve or- 
der and activity, he is enjoined never to quit his station 
without leaving a responsible substitute. And the postilion 
bears upon his arm a ticket similar to that carried by the 
Smithfield-drovers, specifying his own identity, and the re- 
lay to which he belongs. In general, travellers are compel- 
led to take as many horses as they have companions and 
postilions, none of which can have more than three horses 
under their care ; but, in cases where two-wheel carriages 
contain but two passengers, they may compromise the mat- 
ter with the post-master, by paving for two horses and a 
half. At the barrier, this may be an object worth atten- 
tion. 

would 



10 A TOUR THROUGH FRAXCK. 

would pray to the Virgin to bless us, it was im- 
possible to refrain from laughter ; by the bye, had 
a company of Frenchmen, fresh landed in Bri- 
tain, presumed to treat its conveyances-— or, in 
short, any thing English, with as little ceremony, 
John Bull would have growled like an angry bear, 
and, most probably, broken their heads, byway 
of teaching them a proper deference for the man- 
ners and customs of foreign nations. At Dieppe, 
the Frenchmen joined in the laugh, and were as 
much amused with the grotesque contrivances of 
their countrymen as we. The Berlin is a large 
cumbersome German coach, constructed some- 
time about the commencement of the former cen- 
tury : within, it has accommodation for the usual 
number of passengers; and, in the front, i. e. 
betwixt the front-back and the horses, it has a 
seat for three others, with an awning knee-boot, 
and oiUcase curtain, to preserve them from the 
inclemency of the weather— this is called the Ca- 
briolet of the Berlin. On account of the nar- 
rowness of the streets in all the continental towns, 
this curious compound is crane-necked, and 
painted and varnished in a style which once was 
splendid. 

The Cabriolet at a distance looks something like 
an English one horse-chaise, but infinitely clum- 
sier. It is constructed wholly of heart of oak, and 
descends from father to son with the family estate 

if 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 11 

if there be one. Its timbers are not a line more 
slender than the corresponding timbers of a York- 
shire waggon, and its weight may probably be about 
half a ton: sometimes it is furnished with what 
are called springs, and there may be elasticity in 
them, but compared with them the springs of an 
English mail-coach, are flexible and tender. This 
is the vehicle most commonly resorted to by tra- 
vellers in the country, and it is certainly well 
adapted to it. Nevertheless, its weight and clum- 
siness must unquestionably do infinitely more to- 
wards reducing it to its first principles than the 
villainous pavements over which it is rattled. 

The harness perfectly corresponds with the roz- 
ture. The saddle bears some distant resemblance 
to the one on the back of our thill cart horse, 
but is far more inelegant ; the collar beggars all 
description ; the traces \re formed of ropes which 
have snapped an hundred times, and been as of- 
ten knotted and spliced by the postilions. Bridie 
is commonly dispensed with, a leathern halter 
supplies its place, furnished with the wirtn&r on- 
ly, which is on the side next to the driver to pre- 
serve the eye from the back stroke of his whip. 
When as many are used, the horses run three 
a- breast, in consequence of which the middle- 
most tugs along as in a furnace, and foams and 
sweats in a manner which is painfully distressing. 
The one on which the postilion is mounted, has, 

however, 



12 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

however, the worst birth of the three. It is at- 
tached to the splinter-bar as well as the others, 
and has its full share of the resistance to surmount 
In addition to this, it has besides to carry an enor- 
mous pair of jack- boots, which added to the par- 
ty-coloured character occupying them, form a 
load fully sufficient for the sinews of the strongest 
beast without participating with the common 
business behind them. I have never seen any 
thing in England which can be admitted into 
competition with this chef-d'oeuvre of superlative 
awkwardness ! It is formed indeed of leather, 
but pipe-staves would have served as well; with- 
in, it is hooped with rings of iron, and at the 
knee, padded out with goats' hair, wool and 
straw, and weighs about twenty-five pounds 
each. We need not say, that it is by no means 
an easy atchievement to vault into ti postilion's 
saddle ; however, having accomplished it, Rosi- 
nante may trot rough as the spavin and hard ser- 
vice can make him- --if he has any mettle left he 
may caper and prance, there is not the least rea- 
son to apprehend that his rider can be displaced 
-—he may tumble down, but were an elephant to 
roll his mighty sides across the leg, it would re- 
main in perfect safety beneath the iron-arch. 

As to symmetry and elegance of form, it enters 
as much into the brains of the horse as of the 
Maitre de Poste, and one would imagine, that 

the 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 13 

the strength of a post-horse, like Sampsons, was 
seated in his locks, or that it were the unpardona- 
ble sin to pluck a hair from its mane, or prune 
the bushment about its heels— -here and there a 
postilion impelled by necessity weaves a few oaten 
straws into the tails of his stallions, and then at- 
taches the extremity to the crupper to raise it out 
of the mud, but the mane is absolutely left to na- 
ture and its tangles are unviolated by the comb ; 
what with little care would become a beauteous 
object is now permitted to degenerate into a filthy 
and disgusting deformity. 

As soon as your baggage is bound on, which 
during the operation is sacre dieu'd as completely 
as an Englishman would blast it, and you are 
seated with your heart of oak-knee-boot firmly 
bolted in its place (i. e. if you have chosen the 
cabriolet), crack, crack, crack, goes the whip, as 
if la Fleur* meant to crack the drum of your ears, 
and away you go, two up and two down, some 
trotting, some gallopping over the gutters, through 
thick and thin as though a bailiff were at your 
heels ! But no sooner have you crossed the bar- 
rier, than your stallions come to a dead point, 
the traces are snapped, the axle-tree is bent, a 
spoke is started, or a shoe lost--*some accident 



* A name frequently given to postilions. 

or 



14 A T0CR THROUGH FRANC F. 

or other inevitably has taken place, which re- 
quires at least an hour to be repaired. If your 
carriage be handsome, your conductor begins at 
full half a league before you reach a village to 
summon with his whip all the inhabitants it con- 
tains to their doors, and looks all complacence 
as they crowd by hundreds to the post-house, 
some to gaze upon the cause of all this bustle, 
and some to intreat his charity. Not so, how- 
ever within, while he is displaying all the genius 
of his profession, rattling round every corner as 
the neck had never been broken— -brandishing his 
thong and back-stroke and fore-stroke, making 
the air resound with his horrid din, melord An- 
glais sits quaking as with a tertian ague in mo- 
mentary expectation of here finishing his pere- 
grinations. In vain he entreats his tormentor to 
slacken his pace, with distress and apprehension 
in every feature of his pale and cold clammy 
countenance.— " Soyez tranquille—ri ayez pas 
d'enquietude' with crack, crack, crack at its close 
is all he can obtain. It is a Frenchman's glory to 
cut a dash in the world; and, if an opportunity 
offers, for his soul he cannot decline it, though 
he cuts the heart-strings of the mother that bore 
him. The same ceremony takes place as often as 
you approach a post-house, which by the bye is 
seldom an inn. The French roads are in general 
furnished with nothing better than miserable 
boutiques for " bon ean de vie' " bon inrT " bon 

bierrt" 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 15 

bierrf " bon cidre"— had you an appetite to 
swallow the detestable fare which their cottages 
commonly afford, stinking from afar with garlic, 
leeks, and onions, and a thousand other villainous 
smells, it were ten to one against your finding any. 
Good liquor you may obtain at every third cabin, 
if you may believe the sign-board— -your food you 
must carry along with you : ample proof that the 
Frenchman as devoutly bows before the jolly god, 
as a John Bull or a German ; with all this crack- 
ing, cutting and slashing, it is pleasant to re- 
mark, that while temperance reigns amongst them, 
the horses are seldom touched with the whip. A 
French postilion is a stranger to that savage bru- 
tality with which our hearts are hourly tortured 
upon the British roads. ---He recollects that a 
horse has feeling, that its skin smarts as keenly as 
his own when it is wounded, and remembering 
what pain and anguish mean, inflicts it with re- 
luctance upon those who are lent to aid us in our 
toil, and to improve our pleasure---not to be the 
sport of our ferocity. 

Arrived at the middle of the stage, the postilion 
pulls in with a whexv, whew, whew, after the mode 
of the English ostlers as soon as their horses re- 
turn to their stables. You would suppose that 
this interruption and its accompanying whistle 
were meant to give the poor dripping slaves which 
drag you along an opportunity of disencumber- 



ing 



I(> A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

ing themselves of the superfluous overheated 
moisture they carry within them--- in part it is the 
case, but the zvhew, zvhezc, zckew, which is in- 
tended to bring ideas of a certain complection to 
the mind of the horse, brings similar ones to the 
mind of the driver, and as soon as his jack-boots 
will permit, which is not till many laborious ef- 
forts have been made in vain, you see him de- 
scending and fumbling about with the most 
perfect sang froid, it matters not who is be- 
hind him, he thinks no more of indelicacy than 
his stallions, as soon as like Hudibras, he has 
f taken time for both to stale' 1 he mounts again, 
and with crack, crack, crack, pursues his journey. 
Were a different mode of harnessing these ani- 
mals adopted, the custom of using stallions alone 
upon the post-road would be admirable- --their 
strength is immense ; and though heavy, they are 
not by any means sluggish : but in praise of their 
temperance, little is to be said ; does a mare cross 
their path or appear before them on the way, the 
greetings and salutations with which they all unite 
in accosting the lady, are absolutely formidable--- 
nor can we much applaud their peaceable de- 
meanour towards one another, though fellow- 
labourers embarked in one common cause, and 
bound by all the laws of charity to tug on at least 
without incommoding each other, yet should it 
happen that Monsieur It postilion has ill-timed 
bis whexc xchexv, and that their necessities do not 

5 keep 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 17 

keep pace with his, before he has half finished his 
petite affaire, they are all together by the ears, 
kicking, biting, screaming, as though Pandaemo- 
nium were broke loose ; thus interrupted, his sang 
froid forsakes him, then it is the Frenchman rages, 
and muttering many a sacre dieu, with his horrid 
lash reduces them to order and subordination 
again. At every delay this uproar is infallibly re- 
newed. No sooner are they detached from the 
carriage, and their awe-inspiring driver gone to 
assist in preparing others to supply their places, 
than a cloven-foot pushes itself forward, civil 
dudgeon breaks out again with a din which is hor- 
rible. Accustomed to the meek and docile man- 
ners of our castrati it requires no little strength of 
nerve to sit behind these " chevaux entiers" but 
we soon get accustomed to every thing in this 
world-— even ugliness itself: such is the happy 
nack of accommodation which nature has given 
to her children— a simple spreader passed from 
bit to bit would anticipate all this discord; till they 
smell at each others nostrils they are peaceable as 
lambs. 

At eight in the evening we arrived at the hotel 
de V Europe, having travelled through 42 miles of 
corn-fields, fringed with apple and pear-trees, 
and studded here and there with enclosed tufts of 
similar fruit-trees. The country is, in general, 
flat— but the face of plenty, which it uniformly 



18 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

wears, is pleasing. The traveller cannot but be 
at a loss to conceive by what means this broad ex- 
panse is plowed, and sowed, and harvested, as, 
through all the road over which we pass, steeples 
are far more frequent than cottages. Before the 
revolution, Normandy was amply furnished with 
ecclesiastical establishments ; many a noble erec- 
tion presents itself on the right hand and the left; 
once only do we meet what may be called a 
town. 

Rouen is finely situated in the bosom of the 
hills, with the Seine rolling its serpentine course 
at its base, and an immense extent of level coun^ 
try, waving with corn, stretching far to the South 
as the eye can reach. The approach to this capi- 
tal of Normandy is striking: the road is spa- 
cious; in the middle, a raised and- well-preserved 
pavement, forms an excellent winter-path for 
carriages of every description; while, on either 
side, a lofty row of noble plane-trees ; their 
overhanging a gravel-road, and shading the pas-, 
sengers from the intensity of the summer- sun, 
forms an access admirably adapted to that season 
of the year : behind them are dotted the pavilions 
of the cits, who come here to breathe the evening 
air, to gather the fruits of their own gardens, and 
relax the cares and anxieties of business;-— the 
back-ground is formed of extensive sheep-walks, 
beautifully verdant, and reaching to the summit 

of 
4 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 19 

of the mountains ;— the boulevards which en- 
circle the whole city are planted with similar rows 
of luxuriant elms, and form the most superb pro- 
menade which is, perhaps, any where to be seen. 
On the banks of the Seine commodious quays in- 
vite the resort of commerce, and not a few vessels 
of considerable burthen frequent them. Across 
the river there is constructed a very singular float- 
ing bridge (or rather serks of bridges), but it is 
clumsy, inconvenient, and expensive. It con- 
sists of several barges of great burthen, which are 
first arched over, and paved with large stones of 
granite, and then towed into a right line, and 
moored side by side, with massy chains, to retain 
them in their places. From this construction 
it necessarily follows, that the transit from the 
one to the other shore of the river must be ex- 
tremely fatiguing to the cattle that drag the heavy 
laden cumbrous charetes across it. The quick 
and continual ascent and descent on the different 
sides of the barges pushes them about this way 
and that, and, if we may judge of the expression 
of the eye, miserably incommodes them ; nor, is 
the creaking which ensues by any means accept- 
able to the unpracticed stranger; but, the obstruc- 
tion presented to the trade and navigation of the 
river, is its grand inconvenience. Is a vessel bound 
up the river, or to sea, one at least of these barges 
must be displaced to give it room : this is, appa- 
rently, the work of many hours, and is conse- 
c 2 quently 



20 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

quently performed but at stated intervals; for 
which opportunities all must wait, be their neces- 
sities what they may. 

It is needless to say, that, during this operation, 
all connection with the opposite country is sus- 
pended; in consequence of which, when about to 
continue our rout to the Southward, we were 
compelled to set off at three in the morning, or 
defer our journey till eleven, by which time the 
boats would be closed again. There was former- 
ly a bridge of stone across the Seine at this place 
which was swept away by the floating ice, repaired 
and destroyed again, which circumstances occa- 
sioned the adoption of the present piece of cum- 
bersome machinery, but unquestionably injudi- 
ciously : it is said, that the expence annually in- 
curred for the necessary repairs of these barges, 
would be fully adequate to defray at least one 
third of the expence of replacing the erection 
which has been carried away— -a tax this, which 
would not be submitted to in England, especially 
as it might so easily be evaded. The pieces of 
the ancient bridge which remain are firm; the 
span, which would stretch across what once con- 
tained the two middle arches, is by no means so 
large as the iron bridge at Staines— the spirit of 
enterprise would require six months only to form 
similar casts, and fix them in their proper posi- 
tions ; a draw-bridge attached to either extre- 
mity, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 21 

mity, with an interruption of ten minutes only, 
as vessels arrive, would leave the navigation free. 
In the winter there would be ample space through 
which the ice might escape ; it would be an ex- 
cellent speculation (could an adventurer obtain 
permission to fetch his materials from England) 
to erect one here similar to the projected bridge 
across the Thames; a trifling toll at the draw- 
bridge upon all vessels and carriages as they pass, 
would soon defray the expence. An iron-bridge 
in France, where the metal is smelted with char- 
coal, would cost an immense sum ! 

Within the city there are many noble buildings 
which are worth inspection. The church of No- 
tre-Dame, rising magnificently above the rest 
demands our first notice. Its exterior is as beauti- 
ful as Gothic ornament can make it- --nor does 
the interior fall much short of it. But the church 
of St. Owen is sublime, and awe-inspiring ; it 
seems almost impossible to enter it but with re- 
verence ; none but a Parisian or a Rouenite can 
do it. Of these, many were seen audaciously 
stalking along the aisles with their hideous three- 
cornered military hats, and their ridiculous na- 
tional cockades upon their heads insulting the 
devotions of their fellow-citizens assembled to 
praise and adore their all-bounteous Benefactor. 
A few tolerable pictures, which have been pre- 
served by the pious care of individuals, are sus- 
c 3 pended 



ga A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

pended on the walls, but in general they are 
mere sign-post performances. Monuments in 
sculpture there are none ; they are rarely found 
in the French churches ; once only have I met 
with any thing of the kind which merited a mo- 
ment's notice. 

The municipality, adjoining a cl-dexant con- 
vent, is a splendid modern edifice, and gives one 
a high idea of the mortification and self-denial in 
which those holy fathers wore their lives away. 
It consists of two ranges of large well-propor^ 
tioned apartments superbly fitted up, opening 
into as many spacious corridores floored with al- 
ternate squares of marble and free-stone, and 
connected together by a stair-case of the most 
admirable masonry ; nothing can be more luxu- 
riously concieved, or better executed. Monkery 
must have been a rare trade. 

On the eastern extremity of the town, a large 
space of ground is laid out and planted round 
with elms and plane-trees : one side of this spot 
is occupied by the caserne or barracks, which 
present you without with an elegant elevation, 
and within with accommodations for a consider- 
able body of the military who are constantly sta- 
tioned here, to the great accommodation and 
relief of the city ; and, at a small distance from 
it, stands a large and spacious hospital, with an 

elegant 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 23 

elegant modern church annexed to it. All the 
rest of the city is filth and abomination ; the 
streets are narrow, crooked, and inconvenient, 
and the houses which form them are of a complec- 
tion which it is difficult to describe- --the date of 
their erection seems to be almost antediluvian, 
and while churches and convents of superla- 
tive elegance and beauty have been destroyed with 
vandal wantonness, whatever was cumbersome, 
awkward, ugly, has been preserved with a soft 
of pious care. The principal avenue, right-lined 
as a crabstick, may vie with Golden- Lane in ele- 
gance, neatness, and salubrity ; but there are 
points, particularly the former ones, in which 
Golden- Lane must be allowed to possess a decided 
superiority- --the others are mere lanes apparent- 
ly constructed with a view to the generation of the 
pestilence, at least nothing could be better con- 
trived to answer that purpose, and were it not 
for the unquestionable salubrity of the air, this 
could not fail of producing that effect most suc- 
cessfully; across the widest of them a man of 
moderate size may almost stretch his legs. For 
many a century the beams of sun-shine have 
vainly strove to penetrate into them, and as there 
are no receptacles behind the house for the 
Frenchman's proper element, every species of 
abomination is handed forward into the fluid 
pestilence which gently flows adown the middle of 
it ! But the day is sweet as Araby when compared 
c 4 with 



24 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

with the works of darkness— -the evening no 
sooner closes, than the showers of Edinburgh 
begin to fall in torrents from every window, and 
dashing occasionally upon the almost red-hot 
pavement, the steams which rise from it are most 
fragrantly aromatic ! 

In London, the faculty has found at length 
that the fumes rising from millions of sea-coal 
fires are extremely salubrious, that they soften 
the cold, anticipate the plague, and I know not 
what— perhaps the Rouenites have found also 
that these strong alkaline smells are salubrious 
too. At Lisbon and Madrid this has long since 
been happily discovered : for my own part, I 
must think it fortunate that nature has been so 
benignant to this second city in the republic. 
Rouen is stiled the Pot de Chambre of France, 
(i. e. ) it rains in great abundance there ; and 
heaven knows, the more they have of it the bet- 
ter. 

To crown the whole, Rouen is a large manufac- 
turing city; and manufactories are always re- 
markable for their cleanliness. The dye-houses 
occupy one whole street, stretching from the 
ramparts into the center of the place ; a canal 
flowing through the midst of it, with an ample 
stream of water, receives all their suds, and waste 
materials; while just without the wall, whole 
5 rows 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 25 

rows of laundresses unite in thumping the filth 
out of the catalogue in which Falstaff was soused, 
" hissing hot'' into the Thames— -of course this 
stream is of many a beauteous hue, and wafts 
many a balmy breeze into the city to improve the 
salubrity of those that are already generated 
there. 

The Tree of Liberty, which was planted in the 
Champ de Mars, immediately in front of the 
barracks, and constantly defended b}' two or 
more regiments stationed there, appears to be in 
a very sickly state, and seems to confirm what 
our fore-fathers thought, (viz. ) that liberty, and 
a standing army, can never flourish together.-— 
In many places, (for every village has its tree of 
liberty in the grand place), the pruning and 
shrowding which it has undergone, have given it 
a very puny aspect-— frequently it is found quite 
dead at top— .-no where can it be said to flourish • 
perhaps it may be thought that the type and anti- 
type perfectly correspond. It may be thought rather 
unfortunate, that the tree most commonly select- 
ed for this purpose, was the Lombardy-poplar, 
a soft-substanced, short-lived plant, which runs 
up in a few years, in a few years decays ; is lia- 
ble to continual injury, and worth nothincr when 
in its greatest luxuriance. Once only have I 
seen the firmly -founded, slow-moving, solid oak, 
resorted to as the emblem of liberty, and they 

did 



26* A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

did well. Their freedom was the meteor of a 
day, not the effect of slow and gradual improve- 
ment. 

Rouen is also furnished with a large botanical 
garden, but it contains few plants that are rare, 
and the exotics which are worthy of notice are in 
general in the same state with the tree of liberty ; 
most of them are managed injudiciously, some 
are decaying for want of care, others die with 
nursing. 

The markets are large and well supplied : of 
these, some are of a singular complection, others 
are detestable. To a foreigner, who has been ac- 
customed to religious abstraction on the sabbath- 
day, few things can outrage his feelings more than 
the keeping these markets on the Sunday as com- 
monly as on any other day. The multitudes 
which assemble at Notre-Dame on the Lord's 
day, must make their way thither across pots and 
panniers with no small hazard to their shins, and 
have their ideas convulsed and distorted by the 
Voyez monsieur, Voyez madame of a hundred dif- 
ferent paysannes and barrow-women who come 
there to expose their fruits and flowers to sale. 
The morning on which I entered it, there was a 
mountebank posted immediately before the grand 
entrance, harranguing the throng which sur- 
rounded him, while the trumpet, the tambourine, 

and 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 27 

and the fiddle, summoned the devout and unde- 
vout to become the spectators and the dupes of 
his legerdemain, and not unfrequently, did his 
eloquence get the better of their sense of duty. 
His congregation was to the full as large as that 
of the eloquent preacher within. 

Betwixt the casserne and the botanical gar- 
den, there is likewise another sunday-market 
for old rags, old iron, and trumpery of the most 
worthless kinds :-- it is a curious exhibition ; 
in the sum total of which scarce an article is of 
fered to sale, which in England would be dis- 
turbed by the passenger, however needy, were 
it lying on a dung-hill. 

On the Boulevards, on the other side of the city, 
there is also on every Sunday morning a market 
for horses. It is revolting as you hasten to the 
earthly Temples of the Eternal, with your heart 
attuned to devotion, and all the powers of your 
soul exerted in the abstraction of your ideas from 
earthly cares —It is revolting in this pious frame 
of mind to be encountered by a herd of jockies, 
cracking their abominable whips, and forcing 
their jaded, dispirited harridans, by dint of ginger 
and whipcord, into mettle and activity which na-> 
ture never gave them-- -I detest the police which 
cannot correct enormities like these---it is folly in 
its paroxysm of superlative absurdity to talk of 

encountering 



£8 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

encountering the impositions of priest-craft 
by such licentiousness as this. Goods, of which 
quaking guilt and credulity had been gulled, the 
nation did well to appropriate to its necessities ; 
but it by no means follows that religion is a forge- 
ry because a priest is a knave; and, admitting 
that Christianity were a cunningly devised fable 
which credulity alone can possibly suppose- 
there are few, there are none, who love their 
country, who love their fellow-men, who would 
not prefer submitting to the fable, to the evils 
which have resulted from throwing it aside. The 
Frenchmen, as long as the Ancien Regime en- 
dured, were men of gentleness and urbanity— 
from the moment they fell into the hands of the 
modern sage philosophers they became daemons— - 
slaves of popery: many an amiable virtue endeared 
them to surrounding nations, and prompted the 
sigh as often as their degradation became the 
subject of reflection— the slaves of the philoso- 
phers, not a solitary qualification remained, to 
soften the shade of the enormities they hourly 
perpetrated-— from objects of pity, they became 
the objects of universal hatred and detestation. 
Humanity is indeed returning— order and decen- 
cy begin to raise their persecuted heads again ; 
in the provinces they will flourish with recruited 
vigour. At Rouen it will be long ere the happy 
change takes place ; the present generation must 
first wear away ; but, considering the effects of 

religious 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 29 

religious principles upon the mind, the police, 
which relaxes for a moment its watchfulness, 
which abates its energy in discountenancing, re- 
pressing, and correcting whatever tends to 
enfeeble its influence over the multitude is wanting 
to the public. Nor need the magistrate hold his 
wand of office in a trembling hand. ---He who 
will exert himself with spirit and resolution in the 
support of order, is sure of the support and coun- 
tenance of every good citizen. Men of respecta- 
bility, one and all, unite in deploring the evils 
that have resulted from snapping the bands woven 
by their fathers for them; they received their 
priests with transport, and accompanied them 
to the long deserted and abandoned altar Svith 
tears of joy trickling from their eyes. —The dregs 
of the community alone wish to perpetuate the 
reign of anarchy and licentiousness. 

Having spent about a month at Rouen, we 
began to prepare for our journey to the south- 
ward ; and as soon as we had arranged our pass- 
ports with the municipality, and harnessed our 
stallions as before, at three in the morning 
set forward. The first object which attracts our 
observation after quitting the city, are the ruins 
of a superb ecclesiastical erection on our left, 
which, previous to the revolution, was tenanted 
by monks, but of what order I have forgotten, I 
believe Benedictines ; being confiscated it be- 
came 



30 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

came national property, and was brought to the 
hammer. The greater part of it has been pulled 
down, probably for the materials : the few re- 
maining pillars and arches peeping through the 
trees like Palmyra in the desert, serve but to 
shew what was once its splendour— how mutable 
and unstable is human greatness ! The country 
like that through which we had passed, is in ge- 
neral flat and covered with corn ; here and there 
are scattered the chateaus of the ci-devant noblesse, 
which have little remarkable in them ; nothing 
appears particularly striking till we arrive at the 
commencement of the second stage, which brings 
us to one of the romantic turns of the river's 
winding here in enchanting beauty at the base of 
the hill we are about to ascend. 

The traveller will do well to feast his sight with 
this beauteous picture; it is the last of the kind 
he will gaze upon for many a weary day, and if 
he is expert at his pencil, he will seldom meet a 
landscape which merits better to be copied ; and 
here we meet the earnest and the sample of the 
miserable roads which await the morrow. Some- 
where about the third stage as we descend the 
side of a barren mountain, we come suddenly 
in view of a magnificent abbey, which is situated 
on an eminence in the bottom of a romantic vale, 
and commands a rich luxuriant prospect. It 
was impossible to understand the provincial jar- 
gon 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 31 

gon of the postilions, of course we could learn 
only that it had been sold by the nation, and is 
now occupied no more by lazy ecclesiastics, but 
by industrious mechanics who, under the direc- 
tion of a company of English manufacturers 
there, weave velvets similar to those of Spital- 
iields. We learnt also that there were several 
other establishments of the sort in the province 
or department. 

From hence to LiseiLv, corn-fields edged with 
fruit or other trees as before, accompany us all 
the way, the land is rich, and the crops are luxu- 
riant.— -I must not forget here to mention an 
anecdote which strongly marks the difference 
betwixt a French and English postilion. About 
six miles from Liseu.v, by the road side, you re- 
mark a little bower or cabin formed partly of 
turfs, partly of bushes interwoven and thatched 
with straw. This is the abode from morn to eve 
of an ancient hoary-headed blind 'beggar, who 
takes here his station, and lives upon the bounty 
of the fleeting passenger. As soon as the sound 
of the wheels announces to him the approach of 
a carriage, he comes forward with one end of a 
little cord in his hand, the other extremity of it 
is fastened to his habitation, and guides him back 
to it when he wishes to return. The postilion 
never fails to draw you up as close as is consist- 
ent with his safety, and being arrived a-breast of 

him, 



32 A TOUR THROUGH FRAKCE. 

him, immediately pulls in. His figure is venera- 
ble, and commands respect— he presents you his 
cap, and tells you his piteous tale. Forty-five 
years has he tenanted that little dwelling, and 
subsisted upon the alms of the benevolent ; and, 
to the credit of the Frenchman, an old man 
seldom solicits his charity in vain ! Having 
received what you are pleased to bestow, he be- 
gins a short prayer to the Virgin for your prospe- 
rity and happiness, during which la Fleur pulls off 
his hat. As soon as the oraison is finished, 
he joins in the Amen— -restores his chapeau to its 
place, and dashes on as before. 

At Liseux, the country begins to assume an 
aspect hitherto rare in France. The fields are 
enclosed; the farms are well wooded, and the 
pasture prevails over the arable ; but the town - 
itself is the very counterpart of Rouen. Like it, 
it is ill-disposed, ill-built, and stinks most abomi- 
nably. There are here many considerable fab re- 
quants of cotton as they are called, and the peo- 
ple bear on their front that character of vice and 
filth which seems to be universally stamped upon 
all great assemblages of manufacturers.— -Is it 
that the occasional introduction of depraved 
wanderers among them inevitably corrupts the . 
whole mass, or is it that daily receiving more 
wages than . are adequate to a simple decent 
maintenance— abundance leads to luxury, and 

luxury 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 33 

luxury to vice ? In this case, which I believe to 
be the real root of the evil, may it not be ques- 
tioned how far great manufactories ought to be 
encouraged by any legislature ? And if they are 
to be encouraged may we not insist upon it that 
the legislature, which does not encourage also 
every means of correcting the contamination of 
the public morals which it virtually countenances, 
prefers but a feeble claim to the affections of the 
public ?---Here the question arises: what are the 
antidotes by which the poison is to be corrected ? 
We answer, complete religious liberty. Legis- 
lators have enacted pains and penalties for this 
and the other irregularity and vice; and what has 
been the effect? Nothing.— Absolutely nothing. 
Well then— if the secular Aaron cannot preserve 
the morals of the people from contamination, let 
them try what religion will do ; for in vain do 
they attempt to make good citizens without it.— 
Let them give equal countenance to as many as 
are disposed to enter the abodes of squallid 
wretchedness to attack vice, even in its seat of 
empire— to warn the thoughtless, to confirm the 
wavering, to reclaim the wanderer, to edify the 
virtuous; in a word, to plant the seeds of moral 
purity in the heart, and cherish them by the 
sanctions of the New Testament.— -I say equal 
countenance, for every man, has an equal right to 
form his creed for himself, and consequently an 
equal right to the protection of the law.— If my 
i> principles 



34 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

principles make me a good citizen, the secular 
arm has nothing to do with me but to animate and 
encourage me in the prosecution of them. As 
long as I am taught by them to demean myself 
peaceably and orderly, and to set an example of 
social virtue to the surrounding community, I 
have unquestionably a right to speculate upon 
abstract points as I please, and to get to heaven 
my own way ; and if my speculations, no matter 
how absurd, are attended with the effect of 
snatching the vicious from their crimes, and re- 
ducing disorder to temperance and sobriety, I 
merit the applause, not the persecution of the 
government, beneath which I live.— I will not 
say, that the established priest of the country 
cannot check the progress of vice as well as ano- 
ther, but I will say that others are far more 
likely to do it : no man bears constraint without 
writhing— from the moment you tell me that I 
must believe as the cherished servant of the state 
prescribes, and reckon upon its protection and 
favour, but, as I obey him, from that moment I 
listen to his instructions with suspicion ; I consi- 
der him as an hirelings and his doctrines as ulti- 
mately contrived, not for my edification, but for 
the consolidation of your empire over me— of 
course the impression made upon my mind is 
faintand transient— the most impassioned per- 
suasion melts me not-— the most terrific denunci- 
ations affright me not : in short, I must be won 

By 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 35 

by one who comes forward as my beloved Master 
did— whose principles are disinterested— whose 
sole object is my edification and eternal happiness. 
This is the man who must reclaim the vicious 
herds which the manufactories assemble together 
— who must arrest them in their career of vice- 
humanize the savage and reduce him to the or- 
derly discipline of the New Testament: within 
these forty years past, we have seen more accom- 
plished in the work of public reformation by the 
efforts of two unaided individuals only, than by 
those of a whole hierarchy combined. In our 
late troubles, we have seen also that the exertions 
of one respected individual only,** an individual 
on whom the smiles of favour never fell ; nay, 
who was brow-beaten and depressed— could re- 
strain the fierce impetuosity of the Irish hordes 
assembled in the metropolis, and do more to- 
wards preserving public peace and public order, 
than legions of ecclesiastics who had never given 
proof of their sincerity. The conclusion is evi- 
dent : let as many as are disposed to undertake 
the work-divine of instructing the ignorant, be 
animated to it-— let not their pious zeal be 
quenched by the frowns of authority, nor the 
effect of the New Testament be anticipated by 
compelling us to accept it in a mode at which 
nature revolts. 



* Arthur O'Leary^ 

d2 In 



36 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

In this abode of filth and obscenity, there was 
little to attract our notice, and our stay was of 
course short. We spent here one night only, 
and in the morning at four, took the road to Caen 
again : I know not what must have been the state 
of the public roads in England previous to the 
erection of the turnpikes, but, I presume, the 
five leagues now before us are an ample speci- 
men of them.— -Figure to yourself fifteen miles 
of rocky mountainous road, absolutely abandoned 
for eleven years to destruction— -recollect that this 
road was once paved throughout with the largest 
stones which could possibly be applied to that 
purpose, as is the case universally in Fiance- -- 
that it lies in the direct line from the capital to 
Brest, St. Maids, .1? Orient, and other parts of 
the republic, and during the war was plowed 
from day to day with baggage-carts, artillery- 
wheels, ammunition-waggons, timber-carriages, 
in short, every thing calculated to disarrange 
the materials employed, even to their foundation 
—that not a stone had been replaced- —that not 
a chasm had been filled up but with faggots— 
that for a whole night it had been drenched with 
almost tropical torrents of rain, and you will be 
able to form some conception of this detestable 
day's journey. When I look back upon it— 
when I picture to myself my own, and the cou- 
rage of my friend, slowly descending these preci- 
pices- --the tremendous lurches taken every mo- 
ment 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. $7 

ment, as we plunged now into one abyss, and 
now into another, rolling fearfully from side to 
side, while every creak of my wheels bespoke 
their distress, and every vault of my springs tos- 
sed me from my seat— -I shudder at the recollec- 
tion. I question if the descent from Mount 
Blanc be much more formidable— -happily we 
escaped with but little injury— I say happily, for 
had any serious accident befallen us, it would 
have been impossible to repair it— here are no 
smiths-— no wheelwrights, but here and there a 
miserable cottage totally incapable of affording 
us any relief. It is not easy to form a competent 
idea of the superlative awkwardness of a French 
mechanic and his tools : it would have consoled 
me much could I have promised myself the appa- 
ratus of an English blacksmith ; their clumsiness 
I could have pardoned— but I had seen enough 
at Rouen to apprise me what must be the con- 
sequence should any part of our vehicles give 
way, and that conviction served but to send 
every shock— -every convulsion they experienced, 
with agony to my heart. A wise traveller will 
not take this rout a second time ; and, should 
necessity constrain him, a chest of tools should 
form an indispensible part of his baggage, I 
must not however forget to say, that though a 
French mechanic possesses neither tools nor the 
wit to use them, in the art of making a bill he is 
no ways deficient : one would imagine that he had 
d 3 served 



38 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

served an apprenticeship to this part of his pro- 
fession somewhere toward the west end of the 
town. 

We arrived at Caen with the loss of a drag- 
staff and the shoe : for replacing these Miss 

M e was furnished with a memoir amounting 

only to one pound twelve shillings and sixpence, 
in which a very prominent charge was coming to 
see what was the matter; for twelve inches of the 
hoop of an old barrel, and as many rusty screws 
(new ones were not to be procured) they consci- 
entiously demanded three shillings and sixpence, 
which being discharged, a request was modestly 
preferred that we would not forget le Gargon— 
le Gar con ! where is le Gar con f "Oh Madame, 
I am le Gar con." N.B. Le Gar con was six feet 
high, and of a size proportioned. 

The last four leagues of this day's execrable 
journey were over one continued finely pre- 
served pavement ; and though at other times 
the abominable clatter, which dins the ear on 
this sort of road would have been painful enough, 
now it was music and its irksome tremulation plea- 
sure. We arrived about eleven at the Hotel des 
Victoires, but having proposed spending a plea- 
sant day at Caen, had commenced the business 
of the morning at an early hour, and reckoned 
upon breakfasting after it was over. It would 

be 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 39 

be a vain attempt to describe our visages at the 
moment when alighted we met each other in our 
apartment What with consternation, fatigue, 
and famine, mine had attained to its utmost pos- 
sible extension.-— It was pale as a detected cul- 
prit's, the very counterpart of the Knight's of la 
Mancha ; nor could it dilate itself in the least till 
we had dispatched a couple of cold chickens, and 
cheered the inward man with a bottle of Burgun- 
dy ; after which we began to smile a little, and 
finally sat down to boiled eggs, cold ham, tea, 
and bread and butter ; the effects of which were 
wonderful.— Here we learnt that it had frequent- 
ly been necessary to attach from twenty to twen- 
ty-two horses to the Rouen diligence, to enable 
it to pass the stage of consternation we had just 
accomplished. 

Caen is in many respects superior to Rouen. 
It is much less in size, but the streets are more 
spacious, the air is less impregnated with poisons, 
and it is possible to walk abroad without much 
offence. The shops are well furnished for a 
French city, and there are many fine buildings 
which deserve to be visited. Unfortunately, the 
rain coming on again in torrents, prevented our 
going much abroad ; at the Hotel des Victoires 
we had ample opportunity for contemplating the 
cathedral ; which, like most erections of the sort, 
is rich in gothic ornament, and magnificently 
i> 4 grand 



40 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

grand. Its interior however falls very far short 
of the idea which its first appearance leads one to 
expect---it is absolutely disgusting. In the course 
of the revolution it has suffered much, and is even 
now abandoned to filth ; curiosity led me to seek 
for the tomb of the conqueror, but in vain ; there 
is not a monument beneath the roof-— all is level 
and undistinguishing. The altar-piece is curious ; 
and were it divested of the accumulated dust of 
ages, would produce a fine effect. The roof 
above it is finely fretted, but the most delicate 
touches of the chissel are now filled up by re- 
peated white-washings-— admirable specimen of 
priestly taste ! ! 

A spacious, once an almost impregnable cas- 
tle, frowns over the town : a few of its towers 
and connecting curtains alone remain ; time has 
sapped its foundation in many a part, forced 
many a breach, and filled up the fosse with the 
ruins— and that which the great leveller had 
spared to report to distant generations what the 
proud fabric had been, the blind fury of modern 
vandalism has overturned. In the area not one 
stone has been left upon another of the buildings 
it once contained. The powder-magazine, the 
caserne, and a few other habitations for the 
accommodation of the military, occupy the site 
on which perhaps our fore-fathers rioted; on 
which perhaps they debated the feasibility of the, 

projected 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 41 

projected invasion. ---Naught now remains that 
once was theirs, the hull alone excepted ; the 
waters of which they quaffed, and which they 
raised from an immense depth by means of a 
capstern set in motion by soldiers trotting like 
turnspits in a wheel. 

The antient gate -way, fronting the town, is 
repairing with modern elegance aud magnificence, 
and will have, when finished, the fine effect of a 
splendid patch upon an old tattered coat. With 
this the garrison are very properly penned in as 
soon as the evening closes ; the French do not 
look askance on the barracks as we are accus- 
tomed to do in England ; and the sooner the 
prejudice is there dismissed the better— while the 
soldier retains the notions, the habits, the jea- 
lousies of a citizen ; every attempt to effect a 
distinction betwixt him and the citizen, is a trea- 
son against society, and merits the punishment of 
the severest penalty ; but debauched and vicious 
as the military nozv are, contaminated by the 
out-pouring of the prisons, and the hulks which 
have been forced upon them, and weeded com- 
pletely of every political and every private virtue, 
they are no longer fit for society, and the less 
they are permitted to mingle with it the better. 

About to quit the ramparts, having inspected 
every thing open to inspection, we were accosted 



42 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

by a weather-beaten, I had almost said a tattered 
centinel *— his hair was bleached by age, time 
and service had plowed deep their furrows upon 
his cheeks, and his coat bore upon it the intima- 
tion of many a hard campaign ; on his shoulder 
rested his rusty firelock, and at his side dangled 
the sabre with which he had fought his country's 
battles. He had eyed us long, and unwilling to 
interrupt our observations, had foreborne till the 
last moment to approach us. There was some- 
thing in his manner, which bespoke attention ; 
he apologised for the intrusion in words and 
phrases which none but a Frenchman could so 
well put together-— the drift of his enquiry was 
interesting.— -Had any of us known a poor French 
girl ? whose name he mentioned. It was his 
daughter— -she had been an attendant on some 
ladies in a convent at Caen, and had fled with 
them from the storm and tempest of the revolu- 
tion to England— whence tidings had never re- 
turned to sooth the anxiety of a father's aching 
heart. It was his custom thus to accost the En- 
glish parties which from time to time fell in his 
way. What would I not have given to have been 
able to assure him that his daughter was well- 
that she was returning to bless his aged arms, and 



* The national guards are exact counterparts of Falstaff's 
ragged regiment. 

cast 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 43 

cast the beams of sun-shine upon his closing day . 
—May the next wanderer to whom the enquiry 
shall be proposed, be more happy than we I 

We here saw some admirable specimens of the 
Seore porcelain, but enormously dear. Laee 
manufactories are numerous, and the price is mo- 
derate. At a gunsmith's, beautiful fowling-pieces 
with double barrels of exquisite workmanship, 
and at least sixty per cent cheaper than pieces of 
similar execution in England were exhibited : in 
fact, it is astonishing, that with such a little 
stream betwixt us, the price of all the articles 
exposed to sale should be so widely different* 
With one or two exceptions only we may say, 
that the balance in favour of France is not less 
than fifty per cent. Provisions are even more 
than fifty per cent cheaper than in England ; and 
though some items must be allowed to be of in- 
ferior quality, beef and pork for instance, yet 
the mutton and veal are fully equal to any which 
Leadenhall-market can furnish-— while the poul- 
try is beyond comparison superior in delicacy 
and in flavour to any thing of the sort which the 
metropolis can furnish, and the farther we go to 
the south the more this is the case. 

Caen, like most of the French towns, posses- 
ses an admirable promenade. It extends along 
the side of the river, and is perhaps three quar- 
ters 



44- A. TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

ters of a mile in length, and shaded with noble 
stately elms, and the prospect from it is beauti- 
ful. The morning following we bade it adieu, 
with little to say in favour of our host or his 
house. An Englishman's riches are in a French 
imagination inexhaustible ; wherever he appears, 
he is considered to be fair game, and may account 
himself fortunate, and in the hands of the con- 
scientious, if he escapes with only a third more 
than another man would "pay added to his bill. 
This is a trait in the French character, by no 
means amiable ; and it inspires the Briton with 
contempt, who disdains to pilfer a stranger be- 
cause he is a stranger : but there is not a town 
in France to which he must not carry this idea 
along with him. If you are unacquainted with 
the value of an article, there are no bounds to 
the extravagance of the tradesman's imposition 
---you blush while you offer them just one half 
of the price demanded, and are astonished to find 
that they will more frequently take it than reject 
it— even in Paris, unless a Frenchman purchases 
for you, whatever you may wish to use or take 
from thence, you may rest assured that you will 
pay at least one third above the current price. 

The country from hence to Falaise, the birth- 
place of the conqueror, is level, sandy, and fre- 
quently sterile ; the road however is good, and 
corn-fields and apple-trees fringe it all the way. 

The 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 45 

The population seems also to encrease ; frequent 
villages are seen on the risrht-hand and the left. 
At Falaise, we drop the dull monotonous 
aspect which accompanies the traveller, with 
few exceptions only from Dieppe hither— It even 
assumes the picturesque. A deep ravine, finely 
cloathed with wood separates it from the rest of 
Normandy. On the brink of the precipice, 
stands the castle with its ivy-mantled towers and 
flocks of daws wheeling and chattering round it, 
and all around an undulating country, gives va- 
riety to the prospect, and beguiles the traveller 
of his fatigue. It was with regret we passed on 
without visiting the ruins ; the mind is affected 
with a pleasing pensive melancholy as we tread 
the grounds famed in story, and compare their 
present with their antient state.-— How many a 
heart has throbbed high with joy within those 
walls ! and oh how many a heavy laden sigh 
has thence been wafted to those courts above, 
where every wrong is registered — where every 
tear is bottled against the day of retribution !--- 
those breaking hearts ache now no more— their 
troubled pulse is stilled— their sorrows are ceased 
—three-score years and ten have filled the mea- 
sure up— what a lesson to the impatient, writh- 
ing sufferer ! Be hushed then ye anguished sighs, 
be dry ye trickling tears, the moments are swiftly 
flying— soon, soon will the wicked cease from 
troubling, and the weary be at rest. 

Posting 



46 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

Posting forward with all possible speed, we 
soon arrived at Argentan — there to drop the 
company of a friend tenderly beloved— a friend 
in sorrow — of all the events in life one of the 
most poignant, and at the same time most in- 
structive ; for then we learn to what amounts 
the fancied energy of man— sitting with down- 
cast eye and folded hands, the tears falling like 
the showers of April, and every accent prefaced 
with a sigh— fain would we pour the balm of con- 
solation into the wounded breast, and fill the 
mourner's bereaved, desolate, forsaken arms : 
alas ! we feel that vain and fruitless are our sym- 
pathies — the wound is too deep for our skill to 
heal — there is no comfort but in the bosom of 
our God ; it is in his hand alone which can bind 
up the bruised reed ; it is the consolation of his 
spirit working in secret which alone can shield it 
from despair. 

At Sees, once a bishop's see, we only remained 
long enough to change our horses ; and have of 
course only to say, that it is a very clean and 
wholesome little town, which in France, is say- 
ing much. It being Sunday, w r e were, however, 
much pleased at finding the shops shut up and 
business suspended ; it is in the latitude of Paris 
only, that the sabbath is neglected, and religion 
treated with contempt As you advance to the 
south your expectations are pleasingly disap- 
pointed ; 
2 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* 47 

pointed ; the people are too little vicious to ac- 
cept the dogmas of our modern philanthropists 
in lieu of the mandates of omnipotence, in lieu 
of the hopes and prospects of the New Testa- 
ment The clergy are here received with af- 
fection proportioned to their merit The churches 
are crowded, and the deportment of the multi- 
tude is peaceable and orderly. 

At Alen9on, we begin to enter upon the grounds 
famed in the Annals of the Revolution; and 
when I recollect the crimes with which this un- 
happy country was deluged, and by whom the 
price of them was paid, fain would I draw a cur- 
tain across the page of history*--but it must not, 
cannot be— suffering innocence will clamour for 
vengeance— it will tell the generations yet unborn 
what have been its sufferings, and by whom they 
were inflicted. 

Here, having travelled upwards of four-score 
miles this day, we determined to take up our 
quarters for the night ; but, as we were again 
gratified by perceiving the churches opened, and 
business suspended, we were no less mortified in 
taking a walk round the town at seeing the thea- 
tre open also, and people crowding to it— con- 
sistency in any thing must not be expected in 
France. Like Sees, Alencon is clean and neat, 
but it is miserably dull. The laces of Alencon 

are 



4$ A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* 

are famed. Ladies' caps are only from five to 
ten guineas each. 

The general aspect of the country, is here far 
more agreeable to the stranger than in Upper 
Normandy : it is for the most part enclosed ; its 
surface is more diversified, and the eye is fre- 
quently regaled with genuine forest scenery- 
enclosures bring population along with them, 
and population plenty : provisions are here from 
ten to fifteen per cent cheaper than at Rouen, 
and are for the most part of a better quality, es- 
pecially the mutton and poultry. In this country 
they have immense quarries of coarse granite. 

The Caserne, which is a handsome piece of 
modern architecture, is wholly built of it, and 
looks well. It must have been a very expensive 
business. Behind it is a spacious promenade, 
well planted, the jeunes gens were sporting them- 
selves merrily upon it. The church is large, and 
ornamented in a style very similar to those we 
had before seen. 

At Alenc^on I experienced a very striking proof 
of what I have before recommended, (viz. a 
chest of tools among your baggage. )— The length 
of this day's journey had rendered it necessary to 
grease my wheels, but there was not a wrench in 
the whole town capable of taking off the screw- 
heads 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 49 

heads from the extremities of the axle ; and we 
were under the disagreeable necessity of sending 
for a smith from the country, who fumbled till 
six in the morning before this very intricate bu- 
siness could be surmounted. Having, however, 
with infinite exertions, and numberless deep 
consultations accomplished it, the horses were 
again ordered out. I shall not soon forget what 
I felt when I saw them approaching with each a 
string of bells suspended to the chin-stay, sure 
presage to the route we were about to traverse ! 
—-Nor were my expectations disappointed. 
From Liseaux to Caen we had blundered over 
rocks, and through hollows, now up, and now 
down---in momentary danger of bouncing unbid- 
den into another world ; here there were no 
stones to incommode our march, and summon 
all the postilionship of our conducteur into exer- 
cise :— -but had the giants, who once stormed 
heaven, as old histories shew, been plowing here 
for their next winter's fallow, they would not 
have carried their furrows deeper, nor left the 
surface of the earth in a more rugged and im- 
practicable state:— -the heavy-laden carts which 
pass hourly from Beaumont to Alencon, had gone 
to right and left till it was possible to vary their 
direction no longer ; and, as their last resort, had 
finally cut large faggots from the adjoining hedges 
which were laid side by side, and thus formed a 
singular kind of path-way, safe indeed, but 
e formidable 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

formidable enough to those who are unaccus- 
tomed to it. This contrivance presently ac- 
counted for the necklace of bells with which the 
post-horses were garnished ; for though upon the 
bushes we jogged on safely enough, jumping out 
occasionally, one on one side, the other on the 
other, yet it was impossible to deviate from them 
without plunging into sloughs, the depth of 
which our spokes could not fathom, consequent- 
ly it was necessary to send forward as much as 
possible, the intelligence that we were on the 
way, that all those who chanced to have a little 
firm ground on the right hand or the left, might 
wait there till we could pass them by. 

This Russian road continued from Alencon to 
Beaumont; about fifteen miles after which we 
found ourselves upon terra-firma again, and 
about noon entered La Mans, the capital of the 
department in which it stands— much more fa- 
mous for the political events which here 
took place, than for any thing it contains : 
it is almost impossible for streets to be more in- 
conveniently laid out than those through which 
we were conducted to the grand place in the 
center. This, however, is large and airy, and 
mav serve to give current to the breeze, and an- 
ticipate the dangerous effects which must other- 
wise almost necessarily result from the crooked, 

narrow, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 51 

narrow, and confined avenues of which the town 
is composed. 

La Mans was besieged ; and, if I mistake not, 
taken by the Chouans.—lt is not too much when 
we say, that the ravages committed by these 
wretches were devilish. -— Wherever they went 
consternation preceded them, and their footsteps 
were marked with atrocities alone to be equalled 
in the woods of America- --bearing the name of 
the " Christian army*" and professing to fight 
for "God" for "religion,'" for " social order, % 
for " humanity f— their rage was like the rage 
of infernals, and their tender mercies cruelty :-— 
those who called them into the field may blush, 
if they are capable of a blush, when the world is 
told that during this memorable siege they mas- 
sacred not less than six hundred women ! ! a few 
of them indeed fighting by the sides of their fa- 
thers, their husbands, and their brothers, but the 
far greater number when harmlessly seeking food 
abroad to sustain their famished, dying, families. 

At length, however, the amiable Marceau 
defeated them with an horrible slaughter, and 
strewed the whole country for leagues with the 
carcases of the monsters. At Laval they rallied 
again— -again he defeated them— -five thousand 
more of them remained extended upon the field 
of battle, and the victorious republicans driven to 
e 2 madness 



5 l 2 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

madness by the horrible atrocities they had com- 
mitted, pursued the fugitives with a vengeance 
equal to their own. What numbers fell in this 
bloody chase cannot be ascertained : as usual it 
was more destructive than the conflict in the 
field : in short, the carnage was so embittered, 
and continued with that unabating fury, that 
from this day the Christian army is heard of no 
more. 

Bonaparte wisely followed up this decisive 
measure with a general amnesty, and pardon to 
as many as would surrender their arms, take the 
oath of submission to the existing government, 
and return peaceably to their families. This 
was chearfully accepted by those w r ho had been 
compelled by their priests to join the hordes vo- 
mited forth (to use the French expression) at 
Quiberon and other places on the coast ; and 
here the Chouan war terminated. 

We were now approaching too near to our 
head -quarters to wish to tarry on the road : a 
hasty refreshment of bread and fruit being dis- 
patched at the post-house, the horses were again 
ordered out, and without further adventures 
worth noticing, we arrived in the evening at 
Sable— where our friends were waiting our arrival 
and received us w r ith joy. Fatigue and appre- 
hension were painted on our countenances, and 

many 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. S3 

many days had elapsed ere we could meet their 
ardent wishes and fully enjoy ourselves. 

It was our intention to Jiave gone round by 
la Fleche, not being acquainted with the country. 
At one of the post-houses, having accidentally 
mentioned whither we were going, the post-mis- 
tress begged to have the honour of conducting us 
to Sable by a much shorter road ; and as we had 
quite enough of French posting, we very politely 
granted her that honour, and were presently rat- 
tled over twenty-five miles of sand and turf.— At 
La Mans we saw for the first time ladies riding 
astride ! 

Sable has little to recommend it but its situ- 
ation, and a few of the excellent of the earth who 
inhabit it. It is seated upon one of the serpen- 
tine reaches of the Sarte, which here receives the 
tributary streams of another considerable river, 
whose name, if it has one, has escaped my me- 
mory. The approach to it, is mildly pleasing— 
a gently undulating country, enclosed, and am- 
ply furnished with wood, serves here agreeably 
to amuse the eye which turns from side to side ; 
and though seldom struck with the bold romantic 
scenery of our charming native isle, yet still finds 
something to engage and gratify it. 

e 3 On 



54t A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

On a commanding eminence at its back, stands 
the superb chateau of the second Colbert, the 
facade of which is very seldom rivalled, much 
less exceeded by any of the country seats which it 
can furnish ; and behind the whole, an ample 
park, finely timbered and intersected in various 
directions according to the taste of the country, 
with long right-lined gloomy vistas, which, not- 
withstanding their formality, have an imposing 
effect, and during the heats of the summer are 
delightfully agreeable-— this forms an admirable 
back-ground to the picture.-— The spreading 
sheet of water at the foot of the castle, with its 
marble bridge, ever animated with passengers, 
gives us a fore-ground no less admirable. 

But it is impossible not to feel the emotions 
with which we view this picture at a distance, 
damped as we draw nearer to it-— in fact, the 
approach to the towns, and even the villages in 
this part of France, however smiling in them- 
selves, cannot now fail to cast a cold and shud- 
dering damp upon the heart of sensibility— they 
had all been fortified while they appended to the 
British crown, or, during the conllicts between the 
reformed and the catholics in the days of the de- 
testable Catherine de Medicis— for this country 
then abounded with protestants, and there are 
few collections of cottages of any considerable 
magnitude in which one is not yet pointed out as 

having 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 55 

having been a Hugonot place of worship.-— The 
oppressions of the government, alas, have exter- 
minated them root and branch, and left scarce a 
remnant behind ! 

These fortifications have all been surveyed, 
(not indeed by military engineers,) and rudely 
repaired by the affrighted multitudes whom the 
atrocious cruelties of the royalist armies had 
scared from their dwellings and compelled to fly 
thither for refuge ! 

The gates, in which the stern interrogatory of 
the centinel had not been heard for ages ; have 
been closed with massy beams of solid oak, and 
the antient military order of things restored— 
the old embrasures have been walled up —the 
curtains repaired, and the whole surmounted 
with modern masonry, pierced through with 
numberless loop-holes, from which the impri- 
soned peasantry marked the approaches of the 
enemy, and not unfrequently gave him the re- 
ception he merited.— It is impossible to pass on 
without picturing to the imagination the horrible 
outrages which must have been here perpetrated ! 
-—While we recollect that all this apparatus was 
preparatory to destruction— that the horrid tube 
has thence been a thousand times levelled— -that 
the messenger of death has thence been a thou- 
sand times expedited, perhaps to a father, per- 
e 4 haps 



56 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

haps to a brother, at all events to those who once 
were dear to him who aimed the fatal shot— that 
the ground on which we tread has been glutted 
with human gore— that the dust which is spurned 
by our horses feet has once perhaps throbbed high 
in the bosom of affection, and warmed the gene- 
rous heart to the noblest purposes ! — It is impos- 
sible not to sigh— -it is impossible not to propose 
questions to ourselves which, as they are not 
easily solved, so do they contribute little to im- 
prove the gaiety and gladness of the heart. 

The Sarte is perhaps one of the finest rivers of 
equal magnitude in the universe. — Its waters are 
limpid as the d"ew drop, and as transparent as 
chrystal.— On either side it is bordered with a 
strip of the richest meadow, clad in almost ever- 
lasting green. On its northern shore, at the 
distance of perhaps one hundred yards, the 
marble-rock pushes its dark-featured and almost 
perpendicular cliffs to a very considerable eleva- 
tion ; the bluff points of which sometimes boldly 
pierce through the thick foliaged copse with 
which its slopes are clad, and sometimes hide 
themselves amid the vines which climb up its rug- 
ged sides, and swing in the winds with the most 
wanton luxuriance. Its waves are tenanted by 
millions of the finny-tribes in all their customary 
varieties, and on its bosom the frequent barge 
spreads abroad its tumid sails, and courts the fa- 
vouring 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 57 

vourins breeze. There are few situations in 
France the scenery of which is so completely en- 
chanting as the shore of this placid stream.— It 
is not in the power of words to paint the soft, the 
tranquilizing effect of an evenings saunter upon 
its rich luxuriant banks ; every thing seems to 
unite in harmony ; the busy bustle of the world 
comes not here to mingle its discord with our 
pensive meditations ; the din of manufactories 
jars not on the ear, nor do their attendant vices 
and their inevitable consequences, squalled 
wretchedness, obscenity, and filth, disgust our 
senses— the music of the countless nightingales 
which tenant the declivities of the rocks, is alone 
interrupted by the clacking of the distant mill, 
the barking of the watch-dog, the trill of the 
snake, and the pastoral songs of the young light- 
hearted guileless peasantry. To become weary 
of scenes like these, requires a corrupt and dis- 
torted taste. There were few evenings on which 
we did not regale ourselves with a pensive pro- 
menade beneath the cliff, along the mazy wind- 
ing shore— nor ever quitted them but with the 
wish to return. 

The kind attention of our friends enabled us 
to enjoy the exquisite beauties of the scene with 
infinite advantage. The apartment assigned us, 
fitted up in a style of convenience, luxury, and 
elegance almost unknown in France, command - 
2 ed 



58 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

ed the point of view above-mentioned. The 
river meandring through the meadows, the cliffs 
boldly rising and pushing their bald and hoary 
peaks through the dark verdure of the copse ; to 
the right and to the left assemblages of cottages. 

On the high-grounds, at three miles distance, 
the village of Juegne, once the property of the 
marquis of that title— the terrace planted with 
luxuriant linden-trees in front of the chateau— 
the superb convent of Soleim founded as usual 
upon one of the most inviting and beauteous spots 
in the country ; the latter, though on opposite 
sides of the stream, forming with the rest one 
continued line of beauty :— whole hours were 
frequently spent in gazing on the charming rich 
■ variety which lay extended before us ; and, when 
compelled to quit the balcony, no sooner were 
we turned round than an elegant pier-glass of 
dimensions proportioned to its situation from 
within the curtains of our bed, reflected back 
the picture, and gave it us anew with a pleasure 
equal almost to that from which we had just 
withdrawn. As we float down the smooth un- 
ruffiled bosom of the stream, the scenery becomes 
even more enchanting— its banks are more pre- 
cipitous--- the woods moreluxuriant— -the villages 
which people its shores more frequent.-— At La 
Roche Talbot, three miles from Sable, an estate, 
previous to the revolution, belonging to an En- 
glish 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 59 

glish gentleman of that name, the prospect as- 
sumes such sublimity of feature, such rich lux- 
uriance, that it is impossible to gaze on it but 
with rapture and extacy---I have seen nothing 
even in England superior to it. 

Mournful is the recollection that even these 
Arcadian scenes, where every thing conspires to 
soften and subdue the rugged nesses of our na- 
ture, and attune the heart to pleasure, have been 
sullied also by outrage and violence;-- -as we 
draw dear to Juegne, we hurry on with averted 
countenance : we turn away with horror when 
we are told that some of its finest points have been 
selected, by the wantonness of modern barba- 
rism, for the martyrdom of the harmless peasant ; 
that he has been tumbled headlong; from this 
beetling point; that his wife has been assassinated 
in that little field ; that the murderer has lurked 
behind this rugged rock ; that here stood the little 
mansion of peace ; that there blazed the smiling 
hearth; that at this door infancy, trembling infan- 
cy, pushed forth its flaxen head, impatient for its 
parent's return, peeping this way and that, quak- 
ing at the rustling leaf, and starting, like the 
roe-buck, at every sound which tloated upon the 
mournful breeze. Alas ! that parent never more 
returned ! 



Destruction 



60 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* 

Destruction seems to have been the grand ob- 
ject of the-savages who prowled around the coun- 
try ; to glut themselves with blood their pastime ; 
it mattered not that the victims of their fury were 
guiltless of political crime ; not to be remorse- 
less, as themselves, was'fully sufficient to awaken 
their resentment, and their resentment was death; 
wherever they occupied a village or a town, and 
there were many in which they fortified them- 
selves, it spread dismay and consternation around 
them ; the surrounding country became presently 
depopulated, even the boldest spirits which it 
once possessed looked aghast at their superlative 
wickedness, and hurried, with horror and amaze- 
ment in every feature, from their neighbour- 
hood. 

It will furnish you with some faint conception 
of the terror they inspired when you are told, that 
having once beaten the blues (so the patriots 
were distinguished) in fair fight (in which, by 
the bye, they never engaged as long as it was pos- 
sible to avoid it), the whole country took the 
alarm, and fled; and, finding Sable in their 
route, the affrighted multitudes crowded into it 
like sheep into the fold— for 28 hours succes- 
sively, and without intermission, there was one 
steady human tide flowing in at its gates. It was 
impossible for them to remain there ; there was 

here 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 6l 

here neither food nor safety— -nor could its walls 
contain them. In desperation they rushed out 
of it again, breaking down the bridges behind 
them ; multitudes ran forward till they could run 
no longer, then laid themselves down and died ; 
mothers rushed along with the torrent, their in- 
fants in their arms, and dreadful was the conflict 
in their bosoms ; nature could not long sustain 
such exertions. 

In the distraction of the moment, they cast 
their burdens down by the way side, hoping, per- 
haps, to find them again when the tempest should 
be subsided ; many did, indeed, retrieve them, but 
there were more who lived not to see that happy, 
happy moment. Hundreds of either sex remain 
now in that neighbourhood who had been thus 
deserted ; the compassionating peasantry, as they 
returned to their cottages, took them along with 
them— but whence they came, and to whom they 
owe their being, the great day of revision alone 
can reveal. 

Ere we take our leave of the beauteous Sartej 
I must not forget to say, that the convent of So- 
leim, once belonging to the Benedictines, will as 
amply repay the curiosity of the traveller who 
visits it, as any ecclesiastical erection which I 
have yet seen in France. Its situation is delight- 

fill, 



6 { 2 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

ful, mounted on a lofty rock commanding the 
meanders of the river— the chateau, and park 
of Sable---the town, and a wide extent of coun- 
try stretching far to the westward. Forming an 
exact square, its northern and western fronts are 
perfectly uniform and magnificent ; within it con- 
tains numerous, spacious, and finely proportioned 
apartments, alias cells ! connected by airy, cor- 
ridors, and elegant stair-cases ; and attached to 
it are extensive terrace-gardens, which once were 
amply stored with the richest fruits, and, in short, 
with every vegetable-luxury which epicurism could 
sigh for, or wealth obtain. At the base of the 
rock clacks the unresting mill, connected with 
the head waters, of which stands the reservatory 
from which, at a moment's warning, the holy 
fathers mortified their appetites with the choicest 
products of the stream. 

The date of this noble erection is somewhat 
subsequent to the erection of the chateau of 
Sable ; the founder of which having collected to- 
gether more materials than were requisite to his 
own purposes, incensed his vanity by presenting 
the overplus to the monks, on condition that they 
would blazon forth his armorial bearings over the 
principal entrance of their convent ; though, in 
general, sufficiently arrogant, t hey were now too 
cunning to sacrifice their interest to their pride. 

They 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 03 

They caught at the offer; raised with it the fronts 
abovementioned, and by this little sacrifice 
pocketed, perhaps, 1000 louis. 

Four years since, the drones having been pre- 
viously expelled, the hive, and five capital estates 
belonging to it, were sold for 50001. sterling ; but, 
what chiefly merits the attention of the ingenious 
traveller, is the chapel appertaining to it, which 
has almost miraculously escaped the infatuated 
fury of the jacobins, who, in their turn, commit- 
ted atrocities almost equal to those in which the 
royalists hourly rioted. 

In form, this is similar to those which are 
daily met with— -but it is stored with riches un- 
paralleled in any ecclesiastical erection which I 
have seen, Westminster-abbey alone excepted. 
On the left, as you approach the altar, in a little 
recess, is represented the sepulture of the Virgin ; 
the tomb is opened ; four patriarchal figures, 
holding each the corner of a large mantle, or 
poll, on which the body rests, are in the act of 
slowly lowering it to its last abode ; death is in its 
countenance ; and its attitude correctly represen- 
tative of that mournful, passive state to which 
the great destroyer reduces the feeble and the 
strong ; around stand the melancholy group of 
weeping friends who had attended her hither ; 
some are clasping their hands in despairing resigna- 



6*4 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

tion ; others turn their imploring eyes to him who 
watches over the slumbering dust, as if to entreat 
his protection of that which they now commit 
unto his care ; and others yet strain forward their 
venerable head to catch one glance more of her 
they loved ere she is separated from them for 
ever ; the heads are admirably fine ; the expres- 
sion of every countenance is minutely correct; 
the stone almost persuades one to believe that it 
feels ; the drapery is perfectly natural ; the tout- 
ensemble a master-piece : to whom the fraternity- 
was indebted for this chief d'owore is uncertain. 
It is said the sculptor was an Italian, but the his- 
tory I was able to collect smells too strong of 
monkery and the wonderful to be worth de- 
tailing. 

On the opposite side, in another recess, the 
burial of a monk is also represented, but in sta- 
tuary of very inferior composition- --by the same 
master, it is said, but this appears to be very 
questionable. In other compartments of the 
chapel we have several of the most interesting 
parts of the New Testament history similarly 
exhibited, and in a style of execution which, 
were they not eclipsed by the sepulture of the 
virgin, would be esteemed master-pieces also ; 
they are all formed of hard white free-stone, and, 
with few exceptions only, have scarce received 
an injury ;---the chapel, though no more em- 
ployed 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 65 

ployed for pious uses, is yet carefully preserved, 
and long may it be. 

The climate of this part of France is serene 
as the summer's evening. The ethereal canopy 
is clad in almost perpetual blue ; and, through 
the wide expanse, a cloud is scarcely, for suc- 
cessive weeks, to be descried ; the tempests of 
wind and rain which keep our sky in perpetual 
bustle, and are for ever working up fogs and 
thick darkness from the surrounding ocean, are 
there but fleeting visitants which sweep now and 
then across the welkin, to temper the intensity 
of the summer's heat, and give moisture to the 
drooping herbage ; for a few hours the thunder 
roars with tremendous explosion ; the clouds dis- 
charge their contents in torrents of rain ; and, in 
a few hours more, every thing is calm and se- 
rene again. The concave puts on its accustomed 
livery, and all nature smiles, refreshed by the 
change ! 

The productions of the soil are proportioned 
to the benignity of the atmosphere, and the ge- 
nial clime in which they flourish ; abundant fruits, 
in endless variety, and the richest luxuriance, 
grow in every cottage garden ; the vine some- 
times weaves its fantastic wreaths along the fence, 
around the door, and sometimes creeps up the 
trunk of the neighbouring tree, and flourishing 

f there 



66 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

there in all the wild wantonness of unbridled na- 
ture, ere long forms a delicious retreat, beneath 
which the peasantry assemble at noon, to dis- 
patch their frugal meal ; and, at night, to frisk 
all their sorrows away. 

It is impossible for words to paint the luxury 
of scenes like these ; the vegetable world has no- 
thing more exuberant than the vine thus flou- 
rishing free from the controul of the knife ; nor, 
is there aught more refreshing to the fainting tra- 
veller, and the weary husbandman, than the 
grape, blooming like the plumb, or transparent 
as the amber-bead, which, as he stretches him- 
self along in the thick, impenetrable shadow of 
the vine, and wipes the dust from his brow, 
hangs drooping from above, and invites his hand 
to gather it. 

Many a time, as we travelled along the coun- 
try, which, like England, teems with knap- 
sacked-pilgrims returning to their families, we 
saw them turn aside as often as exhausted na- 
ture demanded refreshment, and drawing forth 
the crust with which they had furnished the 
pouch at the last village, stretched themselves 
along between the rows of the vineyard. It was 
then we felt how rich a boon was the vine ; the 
groaning board of fastidious opulence could have 
furnished no banquet so delicious ; for the pencil 
4 this 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. Gf 

this is a fine subject ; the unfavourableness of the 
vernal quarter of the year had rendered the 
other productions of the garden rather scarce. 
Indeed, I question much, if at any time the le- 
gumes of France are to be accompanied with 
those of England ; they possess, I believe, all 
the different species which are cultivated in our 
gardens, but few of the rich varieties of late in- 
troduced to our tables. The people are too poor 
to be able to pamper their appetites with expensive 
productions; but, if their legumes are scarce, 
their fruit, their corn, their poultry, and their 
game are abundant, and superlatively excellent. 

In comparison with their bread, we have no- 
thing worthy to be mentioned. I have already 
spoken of their fowls, their partridges, and their 
hares ; dressed after the French, or the English 
modes, the flavour is exquisite, and the juice 
abundant; of venison, I saw none; the sove- 
reignty of the people has made more dreadful 
havock among the deer than among themselves ; 
the same may be said of the wild boar ; the 
swinish multitude would have acted with more 
consistency had they spared their brethren, and 
pointed their rage against the wolves ; but, to 
use a provincial proverb, " the wolf brings grist 
to the mill- --the wild boar is very good eating" 
This is the grand primum mobile and solution of 
every difficulty which occurs in this world. 

f 2 What 



68 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

What will excite John Bull's amazement most, 
after finding that there are things in France of su- 
perior quality to things of the same order, ge- 
nus, species, &c. in England, is the price at 
which these things are to be purchased. While 
he is paying from 10s. to 16s. per couple for 
fowls, in the markets of the metropolis, he will 
scarcely believe, that at Laval, Sable, at La 
Fleche, and many other places which might be 
mentioned, better ones are at this moment to 
be purchased for as many pence ; but, the fact 
is certain, chickens are there lOd. per couple; 
ducks Is. do. the paulard de la mans, which 
weighs about eight pounds, will cost, per- 
haps, 2s. 6d. a turkey as much ; a goose some- 
thing less ; mutton excellent as the mutton of 
Bagshot for 2d. halfpenny, or 3d. per pound ; 
veal equally admirable at the same price ; of 
beef and pork I will say little. The French hogs 
are an execrable variety of the grunting family, 
long legged as greyhounds, and thin as lanthorns, 
whom neither art nor nature can fatten. Beef is 
seldom in request but to make soup, in which fat 
would be a superfluity, of course the ox is sel- 
dom indulged with good living preparatory to the 
pole-ax. Fuel is the only article which can be 
said to be expensive in this part of France, and 
this is matter of choice. The people enter- 
tain, and cherish still, all their antient prejudices 
against the use of fossil-coal, and continue to 

burn 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 69 

burn wood at a great price, though they can ob- 
tain pit-coal of an admirable quality, the product 
of their own mines, at 6d. per bushel. 

At Sable we were introduced to a family from 

L 1, who came to spend a fortnight with our 

friend F s previous to the nuptials of the 

youngest daughter. Its history is too interesting 
to be passed over in silence : in the hands of a 
writer of tenderness and imagination it might be 
worked up into a beautiful pathetic story. I 
shall give you a few particulars which were de- 
tailed to me partly by Madam D y, partly 

by her friends ; when you have read them you 
will unite with me in the veneration in which I 
hold her character, and the character of her 
amiable children. I will only say, that the de- 
tails are literally as they were communicated to 
me, and most correctly true ; though bearing 
strong features of romance, I can vouch for their 
authenticity. 

Mons. D was for many years a merchant 

of the highest reputation, and most extensive 

commerce in L 1. Inspired with the genuine 

spirit of patriotism, his efforts to advance the 
trade and manufactures of his native country to 
the greatest possible extent were unwearied ; and 
possessing, at the same time, a cool and tempe- 
rate judgment, combined with no small degree 

f 3 of 



70 A TOUR THOUGH FRANCE. 

of mercantile information, steadiness, and pe- 
netration ; his private fortune, which was ori- 
ginally ample, received a very considerable aug- 
mentation ; and his reputation from day to day 
encreasing, at length reached the foot of the 
throne. As the reward of his eminent services, 
Louis the Fifteenth presented him with the cross 
of St. Louis, and indulged him, from time to 
time, with contracts of the highest consequence 
to the state, and most productive profit to him- 
self. Alas ! these marks of distinction, so far 
from conducing to his advantage, proved his 
bane, and involved him in incalculable misfor- 
tunes ; added to his known wealth, they served 
to constitute that crime for which thousands 
bled. 

From the commencement of the revolution he 
had taken the popular side of the question ; the 
enormous mass of oppression which ambitious 
monarchs and wicked ministers had accumulated 
upon the suffering multitude, could not fail to 
excite his pity ; he saw that liberty was the only 
effectual antidote for such grievances ; he re- 
joiced in the dawning of better days, and hailed 
the " day spring" which seemed to be rising upon 
his country. 

Unhappily, Louis XVI. was faithless to his 
oaths, and listening, in a moment big with mis- 
fortune, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 71 

fortune, to the persuasions of the evil geniusses 
who crowded around him, he forsook his palace ; 
deserted his people ; dissolved the textures of the 
government, and paid the forfeiture of his trea- 
son with his life. From that moment anarchy 
and confusion reared their gorgon heads; the 
grand assemhlage of talents, which constituted 
the first legislative body, was driven from its sta- 
tion ; ruffians usurped the reins of the empire, 
and spread horror and desolation through the 
land. 

Among the scourges of mankind brought into 
power by these fatal measures, was one who stood 
indebted to Mr. D— -y 15001. By way of dis- 
charging the debt, he so managed his affairs that 
Mr. D — y, his wife, his six elegant and accom- 
plished daughters, and as many of his relatives 
as could possibly have claimed this 15001. were 
one and all inserted in the proscribed list, the 
effect of which is but too well known. The 
blood runs cold with horror at the enormous atro- 
city of such a crime ; we blush when we recol- 
lect that we are allied to monsters, who, for the 
sake of a pitiful 15001. could thus doom a whole 
innocent, amiable, nay, patriotic family, root 
and branch, to destruction ! But these are small 
things compared with the crimes perpetrated in 
France at this mournful epoch. 



f 4 



-s 



72 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

F s la P was one of the commissioners 

delegated, at this guilty moment, to traverse the 
departments ; to canvas the delinquencies of the 
accused : and pronounce the vengeance of the 
laws upon those who were found faithless to the 
common cause of the people ; and, happy had it 
been for this ill-starred country, had his col- 
leagues breathed the same spirit, and acted upon 
the same liberal principles with him. It is a 
proud reflection for him, that while, like ra- 
vening tigers, they seemed to have had no end 
in view but to " hurt and to destroy" it was his 
business to preserve its best citizens to the repub- 
lic, and now retires to well-earned tranquillity 
and peace, with the epithet Le bon F—s. 

He had been pursuing his mission through the 
center of sedition, when some intimations of 

what was projecting against the D y family 

happily reached him. He instantly hoisted his 
colours ' upon his chariot, and, with the utmost 
possible speed, posted to L 1. The commis- 
sioner appointed to try its crimes was already ar- 
rived ; and, he knew that an arrest was neither 
more nor less than the signal of death. The 
business he had undertaken was full of danger ; 

passing before Mr. D y's town-house, he saw 

the old gentleman sitting pensive in his chair, re- 
clining his temples upon his hand; F--s just noticed 
him with an inclination of the head, and hurried 

on 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 73 

on for fear of awakening suspicion. The com- 
missioners supped together ; and, in the morn- 
ing previous to the commencement of business, 
walked round the town, to view its castles, to 
inspect its manufactories, &c. &c. F s in- 
sensibly drew his companion to Mr. D s ; the 

commissary gazed with admiration — extolled the 
charms of the situation, the taste displayed in 
the improvement of it — the walks — the trees — - 
the beauties of art and nature collected there, 
— when, accidentally discovering that it was the 

property and retreat of Mr. D y, he turned 

short on Mr. la P , " I must not, sir, amuse 

myself here — I have some previous duties of se- 
verity to discharge." This naturally led to some 
explanations, and terminated in the full disclo- 
sure of the infamous business upon his hands. 

F s only begged, that before he proceeded 

to arrest the family, he would judge for himself; 
" go to them — dwell with them, and tell me then 
if you can doom them to destruction !" He con- 
sented — was introduced to the D 's, and 

finally lodged with them, as the principal family 
in L 1. 

What were F s emotions the feeling heart 

may conceive, but no words can say, when three 
days afterwards he was presented with the fatal 

list, from which the D y name was erased, 

and 



74 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

and thanked, with tears of gratitude in his eyes, 
by his colleague, for having interposed his good 
offices, and rescued him from the eternally cut- 
ting reflection, that he had destroyed a family 
entitled to every degree of protection and favour. 
I need not say, that the meeting betwixt the 

D ys (who till this moment had remained 

ignorant of the snare laid for them) and their 
much-loved friend F s was tenderly impas- 
sioned : these are scenes which imagination must 
supply — they mock all the powers of decription. 

Nor, was this the only instance in which this 
venerable and truly dignified character was thus 
cruelly requited by the country to whose welfare 
all his exertions had been directed. During the 
conflicts betwixt the royalists and the republicans, 

L 1 was frequently the seat and center of 

their horrid outrages. Armies were without, ar- 
mies were within, and the miserable inhabitants, 
exposed to all the wantonness of military licen- 
tiousness knew not where to turn ; to remain in 
their houses was almost to await the slow, but 
certain approach of famine, preceded by insult 
and injury ; to quit them was to rush upon the 
murderous bayonet. Such, however, were the 
atrocities committed by the " Christian army,'" 
that it seemed almost impossible to await its ap- 
proaches. The tales of horror which preceded 

it filled Mr. D ys shuddering soul with the, 

most 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 75 

most painful apprehension. Ke trembled for 
his own grey hairs — he trembled for the partner 
of his sorrows— but he trembled more for the six 
lovely females who looked up to him for the pro- 
tection it was not in his power to give them ! 

The Blues having been worsted, and the vic- 
torious party pursuing them towards L — 1, in 
agony and distress which they knew not how to 
bear, they all determined, if possible, to gain a 
little country-house at some distance from the 
town. They quitted B— A — . He was dis- 
covered crossing some fields, Madame D— y 
resting upon his arm, and the melancholy train 
of daughters following close behind them : his 
flight was construed into a crime ; and in a few 
moments, a legion of assassins surrounded, and 
presented their bayonets to his breast. In frantic 
anguish the mother and her daughters clung 
round their only support ; they folded him in 
their arms ; they pressed the knees of their pur- 
suers, and with all the eloquence of female dis- 
tress intreated for their father's grey hairs. At 
length they so far succeeded that his life was 
spared for the present, and they were all con- 
ducted back to the horrors from which they had 
but just fled, there to await their doom !— But 
heaven interposed at length, and sent his swift 
vengeance to requite the guilty and rescue inno- 
cence 



76 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

cence from farther insult— Margeau, as before 
mentioned, who had vanquished the priest- 
goaded hordes at La Mans, vanquished them 
here again ; compelled them to evacuate the 
town, and strew the sand-hills with their car- 
cases. 

Madame D y and her family were hereby en- 
larged once more ; and the garrison which was 

placed in L 1 under General Humbert of Irish 

memory, insured them from further personal in- 
jury ; but this was all the succour that this intre- 
pid soldier could afford them. The exactions, 
to which they were subjected were to the last 
degree oppressive, and finally terminated in to- 
tally stripping them of the entire gains of a whole 
life devoted to business, under circumstances the 
most favourable, and attended with the most 
brilliant success. 

Events like these could not fail to lie heavy 
upon a heart of sensibility, and bear upon three- 
score years and ten with a force almost insup- 
portable. He lived to see many of the enemies 
of his country humbled; and those who, but 
a few years before, were with line and compass 
parcelling it out among themselves, sueing for 
peace at her feet; reverses of fortune which 
seemed to console him under his deprivations, 

but 



1 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 77 

but they came too late— they cast a gleam of 
sunshine upon his closing day— but misfortune 
had done its work ! 

Having mentioned the name of Humbert, I 
will give you one anecdote of him— as it is ho- 
nourable to humanity, and serves to illustrate 
the difficulty to which a mail of three thousand 
per annum was reduced by a revolution, in the 
horrors of which we have been so deeply en- 
gaged. 

Humbert, we have said, was stationed at 

L 1 : he is descended from parents of the 

meanest rank, and is totally devoid of the ad- 
vantages of even the humblest education— with- 
out friends — - without fortune : he possesses 
alone a firm masculine figure, great goodness of 
heart, strong natural sense, shining military ta- 
lents, and bravery undaunted even in the most 
appalling dangers : but these were qualifications 
which, in an age and country where merit, not 
lineage, was sought after ; where ability, not 
corruption, was the path to distinction, could 
not fail to recommend him to notice ; at a very 
early stage of the revolution, he had been called 
from the ranks and entrusted with command, and 
he had never disappointed the trust reposed in 
him. Mons. D y saw his worth, and ho- 
noured him with his friendship— -he was intimate 

as 



78 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

as a brother at B— - A-—, and affectionately es- 
teemed by all the members of the family. 

The turbulent succession of events at length 
removed him from the friends he loved ; and the 
rapidly augmenting difficulties of the state com- 
pelled its pilots to resort to measures of the most 
violent complection to meet its necessities--- 
forced loans were reiterated, and yet the evil 
continued unremedied, or rather encreasing still. 
The bulk of their ready cash Monsieur and Ma- 
dame D y had deposited where none but 

themselves knew- --his horses, his plate, the jew- 
els of his wife, had all been sold to answer these 
repeated demands upon them, and purchase its 
daily bread for his family, till at length all these 
resources became exhausted. A fresh requisi- 
tion was made ; he knew not how to answer it, 
to refuse, he dared not- --the whole family were 
of course thrown into the greatest consternation, 
and the deepest despair sat brooding on every 
countenance. 

At this afflicted moment, Humbert being upon 
some expedition, determined to turn aside to 
visit his friends at L l---but how was he shock- 
ed to meet his once serene and chearful friend 
silent, pensive, melancholy, the swimming tear 
but just repressed ! Tenderness forbade him to 
probe the wound with which he saw but too well 

the 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 75 

the heart was pierced.— Madame D y, hav- 
ing accidentally quitted the apartment, Humbert 
turned to one of his daughters, and with the ten- 
derest interest in his accent, enquired into the 
cause of this universal dejection. She frankly 
told him. Like an arrow darting from a bow he 
hastened to the old gentleman's apartment— 
gently reproached him with unkindness— -re- 
quested permission to furnish him with whatever 
he might want. No.-— Monsieur D was im- 
moveable as Humbert was urgent- --no distress 
should persuade him to redress his difficulties by 
trespassing upon the generosity of a soldier of 
fortune. They parted for the night : in the 
morning the General reiterated his request, and 
was again as peremptorily refused as before.-— 
He mounted his horse ; Monsieur D y ac- 
companied him to the gate— their adieus were 
tender and affectionate : but no sooner had 

Monsieur D y turned round to regain his 

house, than Humbert drew from his pocket a 
purse of two hundred louis, tossed them over the 
old gentleman's head into his path-way, clapped 
spurs to his horse, and was out of sight in a mo- 
ment 

During the interval betwixt their capture in the 

fields and the decease of Monsieur D y, an 

attachment having been formed betwixt one of 
his daughters and his nephew, Monsieur P. 

D-, 



80 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

D , whom he had received from the earliest in * 

fancy, and pronounced an adopted son, the nuptial 
day was fixed— the bridal ornaments were pur- 
chased : every thing was ready, they waited alone 

for the return of F s from Italy, where he had 

been appointed Comptroller-General of the 
French army in that quarter. It was a father's 
request. It was but three weeks more and the 
saviour of his family would attend to give new 
joy, to add fresh zest to the pleasures of the nup- 
tial day.— -Unhappy father, thy cup of misery 
was not full!— one cruel thrust more awaited 
th} bleeding heart ! The harassed mind of Vic- 
toire, tormented by the memory of the number- 
less untoward accidents which had crossed her 
path, and harassed by the gloomy apprehension 
of others yet in store, could sustain itself no 
longer— she sunk down upon her bed— delirium 
presently followed— every effort to reclaim her 
scattered senses proved unavailing : for a few 
days she continued calling for her husband — 
pressing him to her burning bosom, and utterly 
rejecting both food and medicine but when ad- 
ministered by his hand.— Exhausted nature at 
length gave up the conflict ; and, upon the bo- 
som on which she had fondly hoped to repose 
her head in all the soft delight of conjugal affec- 
tion, she breathed her last !— iThe unhappy P — 
gazed for a moment upon the lifeless corpse of 
her he loved in unutterable anguish ; then uttered 

aery 



A. TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 81 

a cry as though his heart was reading, and 
rushed madly out of the house— it was impossi- 
ble for him to return. Pie mounted his horse, 
and sought what, alas ! it was unable to give him 

in the house of their common friend, F s ; and 

here, as soon as possible, the weeping family 
followed him. Her remains, and the remains of 
another sister since dead, have been removed, on 
the sale of the churches from the annexed bury- 
ing ground, and are deposited in the garden at 
B— le. A simple monument of black marble 
surrounded by mournful cypress, and oversha- 
dowed by the weeping willow, points out the 
spot. 

This painful stroke seems, however, to have 
been the winding up and consummation of their 
sorrows, (but for the death of Monsieur D — y, 
which was yet reserved for them,) the last arrow 
in the quiver of adversity. Heaven grant it may ! 
— it is mournful, it is fatal to virtue when we see 
it thus afflicted, forsaken, abandoned to cala- 
mity and distress— we perceive the wisdom, the 
propriety of the decision, when the swift ven- 
geance of eternal equity overtakes the proud op- 
pressor, and hurls his glory to the ground — we 
bow with adoring reverence, and are confirmed 
in our pious purpose to make the attributes of the 
Divinity the model of our lives ! But when ex- 
cellence, almost divine, is deserted — when 
g bending 



$ c 2 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

bending beneath the pressure of triumphant 
wickedness it turns its imploring eyes towards 
the sky— when it bathes the feet of the Eternal 
with its tears, and from day to day sues, but 
sues in vain for pity, for comfort, for deliver- 
ance—then we are not to wonder that the feeble 
mind faints— we must drink deep as Job in the 
divine oracles, or be dejected and cast down 
when our hope is thus miserably shipwrecked ! 

At Sable' the promise seems to have been ful- 
filled — " that He who breaks us will bind us up 
again." The unhappy P — received every kind 
attention which the tenderest sympathy could 
pay him ; they all felt for themselves, despoiled 
of a member of their little circle almost adored ; 
but they felt infinitely more for him— and the 
testimonies of their affection were of a complec- 
tion which, in an age like the present, will be 
almost considered romantic : but these must not 
be mentioned yet— 

In their visit to F s, and the unhappy youth 

who had flown to him in the paroxysm of his dis- 
tress, they were attended by a young man of po- 
lished manners, fine figure, and good fortune, 
who had come from Paris to mingle his tears with 
theirs, and to weep over the remains of the hap- 
less Victoire. He had been some time since 
introduced into the family, and the intimacy 

betwixt 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 83 

betwixt him and Mons. D— y was so evidently 
cordial, that it was concluded a matter beyond 
doubt that the old gentleman had fixed upon him 
for a son-in-law ; the consequence was as might 
have been expected. One of the young ladies 
became strongly attached to him ; she avowed it 
to her mother ; who, seeing no substantial ob- 
jection to the match, took the opportunity as 
soon as they were retired for the night, to men- 
tion it to Mons. D— -y. He replied, " it would 
not do ; Mons. La M was not a man of fami- 
ly, and begged he might hear no more of it."' 

In the morning, the conversation was detailed 
to the enamoured daughter, who justly observed 
that " in the then existing state of affairs, family 
was a misfortune, that it would have been much 
better for them had they not been noble."-" Ma- 
dame D — y felt the force of the observation, 
and accordingly the following evening renewed 
the conversation with her husband, mentioning 
what Miss D — y had said— but the old gentle- 
man cut the business short in a moment, seizing 
his pillow like Mr. Shandy as he turned round, 
by declaring in the most peremptory manner— 
" It must not, cannot be.^ Madame D — y 
perceived immediately that there was some mys- 
tery, not the want of family, at the bottom of 
this business ; and P. D — y, being at that time 
at Paris, she wrote to him, requesting him to in- 
g 2 vestigate 



84 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

vctigate as much as possible who Mops. 
La M--e was, and what were his family and 
connections, mentioning the circumstances al- 
ready detailed. Being upon terms of the most 

undisguised intimacy with La M e, P. 

D — y instantly appealed to himself; and after 
a considerable struggle received for answer, 
" It must not, cannot be, because the brother 
cannot many the sister." It is unnecessary to 
add that this answer was given under the sacred 
bond of secrecy. It was to be confined to his 
own, and the bosom of Madame D — y. 
Here was light cast upon this obscure and 
impenetrable business — but how was she to 
reconcile it with Mons. D y's known cha- 
racter, who was in fact a man of the strictest 
moral purity — the most affectionate of fa- 
thers and friends ? The ray served but to render 
the darkness darker ! 

In this state of mysterious uncertainty things 
continued when Yictoire died, and the whole fa- 
mily came to seek the heart-broken P— at Sable'. 
During this mournful visit, Mons. D — y and 
Mons. F s being walking in the park, the af- 
flicted state of his family led the former to a re- 
view of many of the prominent features of his 
history which he detailed to his friend. At length 
he paused---for a moment he seemed to muse ; 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 85 

when, snatching Mons. F— 's hand, " But (says 
he) there is one circumstance which I must di- 
vulge to you ere I die : it has long lain heavy 
upon my heart, and I must request your assist- 
ance in opening it to my family.-— You believe 
me to be a man of the correctest morals ;but look 
at my grey hairs, and behold my blushes while I 

confess " that I have' he stopped " that I 

have" he stopped again ; the struggle of his 

feelings was too powerful for utterance :---" that 

I have, a s0nJ" > — A son ! exclaimed F with 

astonishment. " Yes, a son, replied the old 
gentleman; and La M-— is that son. He was 
born slv months before my marriage with Madame 
des Fr—y ; but incapable of abandoning the 
fruit of youthful indiscretion to want and xvretch- 
edness, I attended at his birth. I sealed him xcith 
an indelible mark upon each of his arms ; I have 
visited him in secret ; I have educated him with 
care and tenderness; I have established him in 
business ; and, am happy to add, that all my 
cares are amply repaid. He is a young man of 
which the first family in the republic might be 
proud : for a long time have I sighed for an op- 
portunity to introduce him to my wife and daugh- 
ters as my son ; but the uncertainty which hangs 
over me compelled me to be silent ; I know not if 
they would receive him, and rejection xvould bring 
me with sorrow to the grave : my daughter's at- 
tachment to him however now compels me; it is 
o 3 indispensible 



86 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

indispensable that I now acknowledge him and 
meet the worst. — It must be yours to complete 
your friendship for me by aiding me in this im~ 
port ant eclairissement." 

Without the smallest hesitation, Mons. F — s 
undertook the office, though delicate and difficult: 
his delight is to do good ; and to say that the 
affair was managed by him, is to say that it was 
adroitly done. 

To her eternal honour, Madame D— y flew 
into the arms of the trembling, hoping La M— e> 
who had been first apprized of his relationship to 
the family about a year before— pressed him to 
her bosom with a mother's fondness ; declared 
she would consider herself his mother, and pre- 
sented him to her daughters as their brother. The 
daughters caressed him with extacy ; kissed 
again and again the impression upon his arms, 
and congratulated one another with the most 
unaffected joy on having found such a brother ; 
even she whose fond hope was thus for ever 
crushed, rushed too into his arms, exclaiming— 
" If I may not. press him to my breast as my hus- 
band, I yet may embrace him as my brother.'*— 
And one and all united in declaring that he 
should share the family name and the family for- 
tune with them.— But here La M — e begged 

leave 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 87 

leave to dissent " the name he zvould receive with 
joy, and ever account it his highest honour— but 
-nothing more.— His father had before given him 
an education— -to crozvn the whole, he had noxo 
given him a mother and sisters tenderly esteemed 
and beloved; and the welcome which they had 
given him to their hearts was enough— he zvanted 
no more— he zvould receive no more." The con- 
flict of generosity was animated ; but Madame 
D y an d the sisters were peremptory and in- 
flexible : in fine, la M e submitted. 

The father's feelings at this exquisite moment 
were overwhelming— while the tears were chasing 
one another down the care-ploughed furrows 
of his countenance.—" My children (cried he, 
looking upon his daughters) you have blessed in- 
deed your father ; and you Madame (catching 

Madame D y in his arms) never have you 

made me so completely happy as in this momenta 
A deed was immediately drawn up and executed 
by them all, adopting him as a son and a bro- 
ther. 

The developement of the mystery was of too 
exquisite a cast for a breaking heart to bear ! — 
the tide of bliss which rushed in upon the family 
absolutely overwhelmed, once more, the unhap- 
py P— . He silently withdrew from the saloon : 
Oh zvhat zvould have been the emotions of his be- 
g 4 loved 



88 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

loved Victoire had she been permitted to see this 
happy day !—Oh, with what unfeigned joy would 
she not have participated in her sisters' delight ! 
-—What zcould have been theirjeelings as hand-in- 
hand they stepped] orward to receive a brother to 
their arms F He was presently missed by the joy- 
ous circle ; their pleasures could not render them 
forgetful of another's sorrows— they divined the 
cause of his retirement, and immediately sought 
for him, wishing to divert his melancholy, and 
to warm his benighted soul in the rays of the 
sun-shine which were just risen upon them : alas ! 
they knew not what were his feelings— they 
found him in the garden, pacing the ground with 
unequal broken steps, turning his reproachful 
glances toward the sky-— his eyes streaming with 
tears- --his heart sobbing with unutterable anguish. 
For wounds like his there is no cure but sympa- 
thy and indulgence— joy— -nay more, even con- 
solation is poison till time has abraded the keen 
sense of suffering, and patience allayed the tem- 
pest ! They mingled their tears once more to- 
gether; it was all that they could do. The 
heavy-laden heart was soothed, but to join the 
party was impossible. 

Having conducted him to his apartment this 
amiable group of females returned to the saloon : 
—but what a group ! such a rare assemblage of 
worth but seldom exhibits itself to the eyes of 

mortals, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 89 

mortals ; one would almost suppose that it were 
a celestial convoy come down " on errands full 
of love' "to bind up the broken-hearted" tore- 
pair the wrongs which Mr. D y had suffered 

from his ungrateful countrymen, and bless the 
going down of his evening sun !--- Their hearts 
were heavy ; P— sj anguish had carried them 
back to Victoires dying-bed-— they wept for her, 
and they wept for him :— the happy, happy fa- 
ther was waiting their return. " Unhappy P— s ! 
(exclaims one of them as she entered) he has 
lost his wife ! he has lost his every thing on 
earth ! but let us do whatever is possible to mi- 
tigate his sufferings ; it is the only method of 
expressing our attachment to her which now re- 
mains.— -You had promised, Sir, to associate him 
with you in the business ; O let him be associ- 
ated still, and let the fortune you had promised 
him be paid him still/' One and all united in 
the request. The venerable pair wept again 
with joy— they had never seen generosity like 
this before, and felt justly proud of such daugh- 
ters ! — " It shall be so, my children (sobs the 
delighted D— -y) ; he shall receive his destined 
wife's portion, and he shall instantly be made a 
partner in the house ; and happy shall I be if, 
when time shall soften his anguish, and Cle- 
mence be marriageable, he can fix the heart upon 
her which was once Victoire's F' 



One 



9Q A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

One thing only is now wanting farther to ren- 
der us all (exclaims another) as completely hap- 
py as it is possible under the present circum- 
stances to be. — " You recollect Sir, the fortune 

of my sister Le C was paid in assignats— 

those assignats are now become worth nothing : 
-—it is our united request that her fortune be 
paid her anew in hard cash, and each of us*wiU 
joyfully bear her proportion of the loss V- To 
requests like these it was impossible to withhold 
consent. — The instrument which acknowledged 
LaM— e as a brother and a son, was no sooner 
executed, than the notary was commanded to 
prepare others to the effect above-mentioned, 
which were instantly executed ; also the counte- 
nance of each of these almost angelic females 
beamed wiih more than human sweetness as she 
took the pen with which she signed her dereliction 
of so large a portion of her inheritance ! 

Humanity never shone in brighter colours than 
on this memorable day— a day which lifted a 
burden more weighty than a mill-stone from 

D y S heart ; which gave to his wife just the son 

she would have sought of heaven— a brother to 
her daughters— to P— D— y and to Madame 
Le C— — k tokens of friendship and affection most 
softly soothing — richer than the mines of Potosi 
— more estimable than all the gems of Golconda ! 
Never before in this cold-blooded money-calcu- 
lating 



A rOCFB THROUGH FRAN 91 

latino world have I mer so noble aught 

divine ! 

My introduction to this family not only com- 
pensates for all the pains, tor all the dangers to 
which my excursion to the continent has exposed 
me. it puts me in good humour with my species 
again—it tells me that it ifi not totally corrupt, 
and gives me an anticipation of that sublime •: 
cellence to which it will one day I trust be ele- 
vated ! 

D— y with regard to P — r 
and his youngest daughter erished by him 

to the last, but never more publickly hinted :— 
..ed not to see that wish accomplished 
— his venerable partner was more happy 1---P-- r 
D— y had too much good b - too deeply 

the memory o: indness to look 

beyond the family at B--- A—- : a family with 
which monarchs might be proud to ally them- 
selves, while there remained a sifter to fill 
widowed arms ; and Ciemenci ivanced 

in years, advancing also u barm which 

could en^agre the affection of a man of se. 

_ _ * 

/ned to present to him every thing his h 
could wish.— He offered her his hand ; and she, 

conscious of hi- .. conscious of her family's 

united wish, accepted it. 



Dis 



missmi 



92 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

Dismissing then the agonizing events on which 
we have so long dwelt, let us turn noxv to the 
more enlivening scenes to which that consent in- 
troduced us ; and, here I shall transcribe for you 
a letter written to a friend at the moment 

" Among the light-hearted beings with whom 
we are surrounded, it will be conceived, that a mar- 
riage must be a joyous time — and such, indeed, 
we found it ; but, ere we enter upon the detail of 
a French wedding, it is necessary to premise, 
that in France this said business requires a great 
deal of previous preparation. Many will smile, 
and lift up their hands in admiration, perhaps in 
pity, when they are told, that few of the younger 
members of the community have been instructed 
even in the first principles of Christianity. Dur- 
ing the convulsions of the revolution, all the semi- 
naries of instruction were dissolved; no man 
dared avow himself a christian but at the hazard 
of his life — nay, his last injunction to his ser- 
vants, parting with them at night, was, that they 
would be careful to whisper their evening prayer, 
lest his neighbours should over-hear them. 

" The grand object of the visit was, therefore, 
that the bride elect might receive some lectures 
from my friend upon this hitherto neglected sub- 
ject — confess all the little follies and failings of 
her life — receive the mass — be absolved from her 

sins 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 93 

sing — an( i prepared for commencing a new score 
with clean hands. All this the gentleman goes 
through as well. As soon as this important 
business was accomplished, and both were made 
good christians, thoroughly washed from the old 
leaven and the new, they returned home, and in 
a few days we followed them. Arrived — about 
four in the afternoon the notary, with his parch- 
ments, made his appearance, which were read 
to us all assembled in full convocation, and 
signed by every one present. — A clandestine mar- 
riage in France is impracticable. 

" Coffee and liqueurs were then handed round 
to us, and, except one or two sober ones, whose 
gravity, or perhaps infirmity, forbade it, those that 
were, and those that longed to be married, joined 
in the merry dance till 10 o'clock in the morning ; 
when Mr. , the mayor of the town, came for- 
ward, with its archives under his arm — the out- 
line of the marriage-contract having been inserted, 
during the interval, in them. This having been 
once more read aloud to the surrounding audi- 
tory, and signed again by each of us, the mayor, 
the bridegroom, and the bride, advanced into 
the middle of the saloon, where the former so- 
lemnly interrogated each of them separately, if 
they took the one the other, voluntarily, for bet- 
ter for worse. This being answered in the affir- 
mative^ he pronounced them man and wife. — 
5 This 



54 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

This is the civil marriage authorised by the new 
order of things, and the only marriage which it 
considers binding. 

" The qualms of conscience, however, in the 
new Christians, required something more than 
this : accordingly, as soon as the clock struck 
twelve, we all descended to the bottom of the 
garden, where two large barges awaited us ; we 
embarked, and, in about five minutes, were 
landed close under a little chapel belonging to 
a private family, where M. la P i having pre- 
viously arrayed himself in the vestments of the 
whore of Babylon, to speak as a good protestant, 
met us ; hence we advanced, in solemn proces- 
sion, to the communion-table, where they were 
married again, as all good children oug;ht to 
be, according to the ritual of the mother church ; 
which, by the bye, were it pruned of its ever- 
lasting see-sawings, crossing, bowing, kneeling, 
and scraping, would be much less ridiculous and 
offensive than the absolutely indecent forms of 
the church of England. 

" One thing, however, I must mention more, 
there are two rings charmingly devised, and ex- 
quisitely wrought; these were put, during the 
ceremony, into a silver bason, together with a 
five-moidore-piece, and sprinkled, from time to 
time, by a sprig of myrtle dipped in holy-water. 

Towards 
4 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 95 

Towards the close of the whole the rings were 
returned, one to each, to keep the bridegroom 
and the bride in mind of their duties to each 
other — the five-moidore-piece remained for the 
g;ood of the church. 

<c The business being thus finished, and the one 
tied to the other as fast as heaven and earth could 
bind them, the mass was celebrated ; I expected 
that, at least, the new-linked pair would have 
been partakers — but my good friend judging, 
perhaps, that all of us had received a " quantum 
sufficic^ already, chose to keep the wine to 
himself. Bread is dispersed with the benedic- 
tion pronounced ; we all returned to our barges, 
and, as many of us as chose it, presently sepa- 
rated for the night. 

" At two, the next afternoon, we all assembled 
again to partake of the nuptial banquet; and, 
as soon as the evening closed, the pleasure- 
ground was illuminated — an immense awning, 
extended by the four corners to as many trees, 
formed a canopy, and beneath it we danced joy- 
ously till two the ensuing morning. Nozv comes 
the finale — 

" At four, the following Sunday afternoon, the 
bride and bridegroom, superbly dressed, spark- 
ling with nuptial presents, took their seats in the 

grand 



96 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCF. 

grand saloon, with relatives and friends branch- 
ing off to right and left, and forming a crescent 
with them ; and, forthwith all the fashion of 
the town, antique, and modern, were seen com- 
ing forward like an army — the ladies to be kissed' 
by the bridegroom, the gentlemen to kiss the 
bride; and, not unfrequentLy, were the latter 
seen smacking each other with a warmth and cor- 
diality even greater than that with which they sa- 
luted the ladies. It is truly laughable to see two 
immense grizzly beards thus entwined and inter- 
lacing with each other : the Frenchmen suffer 
their beards to cover the greater half of their 
countenances. 

" This truly toilsome business having lasted 
about five hours, the tide, which came steadily in 
at one door, and flowed out at the other, began to 
slacken ; and I was happy to see it — to use an 
English colloquial expression, the bride was com- 
pletely fagged : it must be a complete antidote 
to kissing for three months at least. 1 ' 

The face of the country from Sable to Laval 
is mildly picturesque — but the soil is poor ; forests 
accompany us a large portion of the distance be- 
tween them, which, during the convulsions of the 
revolution, served as a shelter to the royal ban- 
ditti that infested the country, and completely cut 
off all connection betwixt the northern and south- 
ern 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 97 

ern extremities of the country — a circumstance 
which gave occasion to many a mournful tragedy. 
One must be mentioned as a specimen of the 
rest: the sister of F~ s la P had been pro- 
fessed among the ftlles de Chariti — an order of 
nuns whose business is to nurse the sick and af- 
flicted poor, and to administer medical aid to 
them, in the principles of which they were in- 
structed in their convents. She had been sum- 
moned together, with another of her sisters, 
from La Fleche to Laval. The journey was in- 
finitely dangerous, but the danger weighed no- 
thing when ballanced against duty ; they set out 
in a cabriolet, and happily accomplished their 
object without molestation. 

At Laval there were, as might reasonably be 
expected, those who panted, and longed to con- 
vey intelligence of themselves to their friends at 
La Fleche, from whom they had long been sepa- 
rated, as completely as if the ocean had flowed 
between them ; they loaded the poor post-boy with 
letters. Alas! in the forest, the Chouans met 
him; they hurried him to an adjoining village. 
Letters from patriots to patriots were upon him. 
It was enough — though unconscious of wrong as 
his horses — though simple as an infant, it availed 
him nothing ; from the examination of his pocket 
he was hurried to the guillotine, and in a few mi- 

h nutes 



PS A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

nutes paid the forfeit of another man's imprudence 
with his head. 



On the route from Sable to Laval there were 
two bridges of stone which had been erected but 
a few years previous to the revolution at a very 
considerable expense : these have been demo- 
lished, but are now repairing, at the cost of the 
nation, as are all the roads in these western de- 
partments : the exertions of this description, 
which meet our notice wherever we go, are asto- 
nishing. 

At Meslay, where we changed our horses, we 
were shewn the remains of an antient castle ; dur- 
ing the conflicts betwixt the different villages of 
the forest (for these waged a petit war among 
themselves, while the republic fought its enemies 
upon a larger scale abroad) the inhabitants of 
this place having been vanquished by the inhabi- 
tants of the neighbouring village, were compelled 
to seek shelter within its walls * and, there sus- 
taining a long and tiresome siege — of cannon 
neither party possessed a single piece, or the 
matter must have come to a short issue. Aided, 
at length, by a few scientific murderers from the 
Christian army, the assailants carried a mine 
under the foundation of one of the towers ; and, 
in an evil moment, blew it and its inhabitants up 

together 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 99 

together. Imagination can scarcely picture to it- 
self a state of horror more complete than this--- 
village pitted against village, house against house, 
when man was compelled to fly from the face of 
man, to regard every one he encountered in his 
way as a murderer, and to feel himself then 
only secure when his neighbour lay bleeding at 
his feet 

I remember, long since, to have been deeply 
interested in the narratives contained in the 
" American Farmer's Letters"-— but little did I 
think that I should ever traverse the grounds 
where enormities like those so simply detailed by 
him had been committed— where the peasant had 
been compelled to turn his fields with his mus- 
quet leaning on his plough, with his sabre slung 
at his side, and his children perched on the sur- 
rounding trees to watch for their father's safety, 
and warn him of the assassin creeping along, like 
a wily fox, beneath the covert of the hedge to de- 
stroy him— -where scarcely a night was seen to 
pass away without being illuminated by the blaze 
of burning cottages. In fact, the night was ge- 
nerally chosen for the exploits of the Chouans* 
Guilt like theirs shuns the light of day— hence 
they were called Chouans, which signifies the 
owls. 

h 2 Laval 



100 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

Laval is situated upon the Mayenne, and I be- 
lieve is the principal town in the department. It 
contains an antient gloomy castle, the proprietor 
of which headed those nightly depredators in 
many of their expeditions ; and, after the bloody 
conflict betwixt them and Mar^eau before- 
mentioned, being taken prisoner, was guillotined 
in the court-yard, fronting his own apartment* 
He had many a time curbed their infernal fury, 
and spared the lives of several republican pri- 
soners of respectability who fell into his hands, 
for whose blood they were thirsting;— though a 
traitor to his country, he went to the scaffold 
accompanied by the sighs and tears of thousands 
whose politics were diametrically opposed to his 
—such is the hold which humanity takes upon 
the heart. It has also a handsome gothic church, 
and a very numerous population. The linen 
manufactory carried on here merits attention ; 
the extent of it is not exceeded in France ; and 
the fabric, or texture, is admirable- --it fully 
equals the linens of Holland, and is, perhaps, 
20 per cent cheaper. At what is called the Ma- 
zure, a bleaching-ground at some considerable 
distance from Laval, we saw an establishment of 
that sort, the largest of the kind, belonging to 
an individual, which I have ever met with ;— 
probably, not less than 200 acres were whitened 
with numberless pieces of linen, of various fine- 
ness, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 101 

ness, bleaching in the sun. The whole prepa- 
ratory process was fully explained, and the work- 
shops thrown open to us ; but I observed nothing 
with which I was not already acquainted ; in 
many respects their machinery is capable of great 
improvement. It was with sincere regret that I 
perceived numerous casks of spirit of vitriol, 
and the muriatic acid arranged beside the buck- 
ing-house. Manufactures and philosophers may 
plead to eternity in favour of this new adopted 
method. The use of those corrosive acids serves 
only to return the capital quickly into the first 
hands. It is a destructive process, and he that 
would obtain good linen must bleach it as his 
forefathers did, and be content to wait till the 
sun and rain have perfected the work. 

Delauney, famed for planting the tree of li- 
berty in front of his house while embassador from 
France to the United States of America, was de- 
scended from a truly amiable and respectable fa- 
mily in Laval. He was an impetuous young 
man, drunk with republicanism; in vain did 
the congress remonstrate with him, and, by 
various gentle methods, endeavour to beguile 
him into the removal of the obnoxious emblem. 
He was immoveable in his purpose. They pas- 
sed the decree, that it should be taken down at 
all events, and a file of musqueteers were sent 
with express orders to remove it : they found 

h 3 him 



102 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

him embracing the tree with a loaded pistol in 
each hand— but, unawed by the menacing pos- 
ture which he had assumed, they proceeded to 
take him from it by force. He struggled hard, 
bellowing wild rhapsodies all the while ; and, at 
the instant in which he lost his hold, he clapped 
the muzzle to his head and drew the fatal trig- 
ger ; his face was horribly mangled ; one of his 
cheeks was torn off ; but, he survived the misera- 
ble mutilation, and returned to France ; and, in 
his own country, made himself as conspicuous, 
by the boldness and temerity of his conduct, as 
in America. Alas ! he saw that the bloody strug- 
gles for liberty which she had made were unavail- 
ing— -he saw her new-born freedom trampled 
under foot by anarchy and lawless outrage. In 
wild destraction he rushed to the Pont-neuj] 
and hid himself from the hateful sight for ever. 

At Laval, the effects of commerce are pecu^ 
liarly striking ; totally unlike most of the other 
towns through which we pass, elegance and com- 
fort are here conspicuous ; the high lands above 
the river are beautifully ornamented by the coun- 
try-houses of the merchants and manufacturers ; 
and, the interior fully answers to the front. An 
Englishman is here frequently reminded of his 
dear native isle, and may almost think himself 
at home. The apartments are fitted up in the 
English style, and not unfrequently with English 

furniture ; 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 103 

furniture ; and, to crown the whole, hospitality 
—that genuine hospitality which once was En- 
glish, amply spreads the board, and gives zest to 
the entertainment. 

Taxation has not here engulphed the energies 
of man, nor frozen the genial current of his 
heart; half a dozen friends superinduced upon 
a family for as many weeks in England is a very 
serious concern ; at Laval it is nothing— hence 
the tables of its inhabitants are loaded with con- 
tinual luxury, and ease and gaiety smile upon 
every brow, 

The manufacturers of Laval enjoy the peculiar 
protection of the government, which, notwith- 
standing its own necessities, has again and again 
stepped forward to aid them in the moment of 
distress; but, for its interposition, many of the 
most opulent houses must have fallen in the same 
common ruin with their neighbours. The Ma- 
zure was frequently stripped by the Chouans ; 
500 pieces of linen were the spoils of their last 
expedition against it. With a spirit such as this, 
Mr. P— -y and Co. may struggle ; but, all his 
attempts to undermine the manufacturers of 
France will be unavailing. 

From Sable to La Fleche, which is about 18 
miles, the road is excellent, and the country 

h 4 beautiful; 



104 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

beautiful ; there are many villages finely situated, 
and improving in picturesque beauty as you pro- 
ceed. As on the road from thence to Laval, 
national forests accompany us the greater part of 
the way, game must be abundant, and we can- 
not be astonished at the immense quantities of 
it which are in the season expedited to the capi- 
tal, amounting to waggon-loads weekly. 

La Fleche is a clean little town, pleasantly 
situated upon Le Loir ; it is far better built than 
the French towns which we have seen ; the streets 
are wide, straight-lined, and commodious, and 
its general aspect is comfortable. Its situation 
is very eligible, being surrounded with gentle 
swelling hills, sloping down to the river, which is 
navigable to the Sarte ; the Sarte to the Loire ; 
and, the Loire to the sea below Nantes. La 
Fleche, however, chiefly claims attention on ac- 
count of its college, founded and endowed by 
the great Henry the Fourth, anno 1603, and 
placed by him under the controul and direction 
of the Jesuits. The house is spacious, princely, 
worthy of the donor : it consisted originally of 
a noble mansion, the architecture of which is 
elegant, and of two detatched corresponding 
wings, one of which had been taken down, and 
rebuilt in modern taste, when the revolution ar- 
rested the hand of improvement, and prevented 
the other from being rebuilt also. 

The 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 105 

The whole contained accommodations for no 
less than 600 young gentlemen. , Behind is a spa- 
cious garden, laid out in the French taste, i. e. 
in squares and circles, triangles and stars, with 
here and there a yew-tree, and a juniper, clipped 
into forms and shapes which cannot offend the 
commandment ; and, beyond the garden, a noble 
park, in which the students were wont to exercise 
and divert themselves. 

The center part of the building is now con- 
verted into the municipality, or town-house ; but, 
the wing which has been rebuilt, is rented of the 
nation by a gentleman of considerable talents 
and learning, who has here founded a seminary 
for the education of youth, over which he pre- 
sides with considerable celebrity. The remain- 
ing wing is returning fast to the earth out of 
which it teas taken of old. There were few or 
none admitted upon this foundation but the sons 
of the decayed nobility; recollecting that the 
gentry to the westward of La Fleche were all of 
the " noble race of Shenkin" and, though poor 
as Job, upon his dunghill yet noble, I^enry ge- 
nerously determined to give what fortune had de- 
nied them— to educate them as gentlemen, and 
enable them thereby to render themselves useful 
to their country, and retrieve their ruined houses. 
Did one of these " Corinthian capitals oj society 9 
appear at La Fleche, no matter how much fal- 
len, 
5 



106 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE.' 

en, could he produce indisputable proofs of the 
privileged stream flowing in his veins, it was 
enough— the board— the education— the cloath- 
ing of his sons cost him not one single sous. 

It was princely thus to extend the helping- 
hand to dignity in distress, and rescue the 
proud soul of independance from degradation — 
the almost inevitable consequences of which are 
practices disgraceful to the perpetrator, and 
ruinous to society ; and never, surely, was there 
a country in which such exertions were more im- 
periously demanded ! It is almost incredible, but 
the fact is indisputable, that these noblemen hav- 
ing brought their sons to La Flcehe, were fre- 
quently under the necessity of " begging their 
way" back to their chateaus again. 

At present, it is impossible to carry on the 
glorious work upon the antient liberal principles 
—the royal endowments have been appropriated 
to the necessities of the state, or rather to the 
necessities, extravagance, and vice of the wretch- 
es who seized its helm— the funds are dissipated 
-—not even the walls are held by antient tenure— 
every thing is prostituted— every thing perverted 
from its original object. Nevertheless, the con- 
trast is striking when we compare the expense 
of education at La Fleche with the expense of 
an inferior education in England. 

Masters 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 107 

Masters of eminence in the several branches 
of tuition are here engaged, and youth are taught 
the living and dead languages, the mathematics, 
philosophy moral and natural, music, dancing, 
in short, every thing requisite to the education 
of a gentleman— are boarded, clothed, and 
lodged for fifty guineas per annum. There are 
at present about 200 upon the list; many of 
them belonging to the first families in the sur- 
rounding departments. 

A few of the wealthier young Britons begin 
also again to appear at La Fleche. It would be 
well for them could it be said that they had 
learned wisdom in the school of adversity, and 
had acquired a disposition to submit tacitly to the 
rank to which the general voice of the nation has 
brought them back. Alas ! they are proud and 
arrogant as ever ! totally insensible to the indul- 
gence which has permitted them and their fathers 
to return to the patrimony of their ancestors; 
they are continually caballing amongst themselves, 
cherishing odious distinctions, and evidently 
wait with impatience for the opportunity of 
trampling the roturieu in the dust again I from 
such a race what is to be expected ? If adversity 
cannot humble them, if indulgence cannot mol- 
lify them— to what process must the guardian of 
the public peace next resort ? 



It 



108 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

It may not be amiss to mention ere I quit La 
Fleche, that an English lady availing herself of 
the infinite advantages resulting from the neigh- 
bourhood of the college, has there also instituted 
a female seminary upon the same principles with 
the one above-mentioned, and wirh the assist- 
ance of the same tutors. The young ladies are 
here taught every female accomplishment ; board- 
ed and cloathed for forty guineas per annum. 
About forty are here assembled ; and their coun- 
tenances bespeak a good table, and their man- 
ners the cares of a gentlewoman.— It will be 
recollected that La Fleche was the favourite re- 
treat of the celebrated David Hume, and that 
here he composed some of his metaphysical 
pieces. 

We have before described the cabriolets of 
Dieppe and Rouen. The cabriolet of La F16che 
and Angers in which we embarked for the latter 
place is totally different from them, and infinitely 
more detestable : with them you may compro- 
mise the matter tolerably well, and posting to 
your account before you set out jolts and con- 
vulsions innumerable, feel tolerably at your ease 
with regard to the final safety of your bones.— 
Here the first motion of the horses is like the 
signal of alarm ; you feel it like an electrical 
shock in your heart ; and, if your female com- 
panions be furnished with but a very moderate 

quantum 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 109 

quantum of that elegant English attainment com- 
monly called " nervous complaints " " affections 
of the nerves,'" and so on, it is succeeded by a 
general scream. 

You have seen in Piccadilly the basket-carts 
which carry the mails from the post-office to the 
coaches waiting at the Gloucester-coffee-house 
for them — take by way of recipe' one of these ; 
let it be four feet wide and nine feet long, and of 
a height just sufficient to admit your head be- 
neath the cover when it is at rest; pass two 
planks from side to side by way of benches, and 
pierce as many air-holes in its side to keep its 
contents from absolute suffocation. Mount this 
admirable contrivance upon the hinder axle-tree 
of a north-country stage-waggon of about two- 
hundred weight, and attach to each extremity of 
it a wheel with fellies nine inches by five, and 
bound with iron in proportion : when all things 
are ready u stow away' three passengers upon 
each bench, and as many upon the front and 
back-seat, and pile up, no matter how high, 
their baggage upon the roof and xoila the Angers 
diligence ready to start ! 

As to the mode of getting forward, the case is 
much the same through all France; tie on with 
ropes— it would be a libel upon the words to call 
it harnessing— tie on four or more old stallion s 

lecherous 



110 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

lecherous as goats and vicious as d— Is, ever 
standing in spite of fate one one way, another 
another ; to the off-end of the bit of the off-leader 
fasten a piece of cord, and let the other extre- 
mity of it be attached in like manner to the 
near end of the bit of the near-leader : the mid- 
dle part or bow of this curious rein must be 
passed through an iron-ring dangling from a bow 
of the same metal, passing round before the con- 
ductor and supporting the knee-boot. 

The moment of starting being arrived, behold 
us then packed in like geese in a pannier, one 
shrugging up his shoulders, another wriggling 
his rump, a third tugging at the lap of his coat 
or the tail of her gown on which a fourth is firmly 
seated ; one and all fretting, grumbling, at each 
others unpoliteness ; and do not forget that we 
are in lat. 47 with a. sun over our heads across 
the flaming disk of which a cloud has not passed 
these six weeks, shining with such intense bril- 
liancy as absolutely to fire the heaths which sur- 
round us ! The stallions, as before said, look- 
ing every way but the right one ; the reins tied 
with Obadiah's double and treble knots ; Moris* 
le postilion in his place ; a little pipe of five inches 
length in his mouth smoking with the rankest and 
most foetid tobacco the western world can pro- 
duce ; his whip in both his. hands like a flail in 
2 the 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. Ill 

the hands of a thresher ; expectation on tip-toe 
in us all ! 

No sooner is the eventful allons pronounced, 
than with all his might he levels a tremendous 
stroke at the buttocks of each of his cattle, ac- 
companying it with an uncouth and horrid yell 
something like an Irish howl, and away they 
start, ushering forward in a mode which seems 
to indicate their intention to pull our poor 
vehicle, like the martyrs of old, limb from limb ; 
as long as they fail to blunder over the precipice 
or into the ditch every thing goes on admirably. 
The idea of quartering the road to avoid the 
ruggedness of it which neglect has generated, 
has not yet been imported into France ^—in- 
deed, with such harness to carry it into execu- 
tion, had some plodding speculator conceived it, it 
would be impracticable. The moment the horses 
begin to tug the basket- begins to swing, and 
being so heavy-laden on the top it pours forth its 
griefs in many a fearful creak, and not a few 
minutes are elapsed ere the stranger can persuade 
himself that the bottom of his voiture is not ab- 
solutely escaping from under his feet and the 
baggage tumbling about his ears : — by dint of 
ilogging, now to the right, now to the left, one 
while with the thong, another while with the but 
end of the whip, we contrive to get tolerably in 
the middle of the road, and to get on at the rate 

of 



: 13 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

of six miles an hour, but not without infinite 
danger ; and were it not that a carriage is a vara 
axis upon the French roads (the common stage- 
carts excepted) it would be impossible not to be 
cast away every hour ! 

It was night ere we arrived at Angers, and 
you may suppose we sat with infinite satisfaction 
anticipating the pleasure of being rattled through 
its long, dark, and narrow streets — one of our 
leaders, to crown the whole, being a perfect no- 
vice at his business. However, this circum- 
stance turned to our advantage ; the postilion 
questioning his own ability to keep his pupil in 
the right line, got some one to lead him ; and at 
nine we disembarked at the messagerie singing 
Te deum as we passed from it to our friends. 

In the morning we rose and began to look 
around us, and presently found that we had not 
risqued our bones for nothing. Angers was a 
favourite station of the Romans, who appear in 
their choice of situations to have possessed a 
taste not a whit inferior to the monks. Many 
remains .of the conquerors of the world are yet to 
be seen. A few of the arches of an aqueduct 
constructed by them across the river are yet in 
perfect preservation, and form a very prominent 
object as you walk beside its busy banks. 



The 



A TOUR THROUGH FRAXCE. 113 

The town itself has little to recommend it : it 
is very similar to the other towns which we have 
visited, and when one of them is described all 
are described. It has however many a noble 
mansion within its walls.— -The gloomy castle, 
formerly tenanted by the Plantagenets, in which 
antiquaries are shewn the tomb of Rene, king of 
Sicily, together with that of his wife, demands 
our first attention. The cathedral, of a struc- 
ture perfectly unique, consisting of one long 
avenue surmounted by a gothic arched-roof 
without a pillar, merits inspection. Besides 
these, various superb religious houses of modern 
erection, in which simplicity and elegance are 
united, deserve to be visited. They are now 
turned to various useful purposes. 

What is now the caserne, was formerly an 
equestrian academy of high reputation through- 
out Europe. It is a superb building, and most 
admirably adapted to the purposes for which it 
was erected. Peter the great of Russia learnt 
here the art of horsemanship. Angers has long 
been the seat of literature. Its university, 
founded by Louis II. duke of Anjou, in 1246, 
maintained a reputation fully equal to that of any 
university in the kingdom ; and its academy of 
the belles-lettres, founded in 1685, was not less 
illustrious. The church formerly attached to the 

i university, 



114 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

university, is now converted into a gallery fof 
paintings, and its numerous appendages are de- 
voted to the arts and sciences. 

There is here a well chosen museum, and a 
very interesting national school.— Professors of 
natural and experimental philosophy ; the mathe- 
matics ; surgery ; medicine ; painting ; sculp- 
ture ; botany— are here established with compe- 
tent salaries at the expense of the nation. 

The prefect of Mayenne and Loir, a gentle- 
man of science and observation, politely attended 
us through all the various departments, and ex- 
plained whatever called for explanation : from 
him we learnt that in all these schools genius is 
alone sought after, and no partiality shewn but 
to merit. Instruction is offered to every one 
who seeks it. He who can afford it is expected 
to subscribe about one guinea per annum— the 
children of the poor are taught absolutely gratis. 
—I forget to say that Angers is situated just be- 
low the confluence of the Sarte and^the Mayenne, 
the former having previously received the tribu- 
tary waters of the lesser Loir, and about three 
miles from the point There the united streams fall 
into the Loir. Gazetteers, almost one and all, 
appear to have been wholly misinformed of its 
real position. 

Previous 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 115 

Previous to the revolution it carried on a con- 
siderable trade in camblets, serges, and mixed- 
stufFs.— Its commerce is now reviving.— A very 
extensive manufacture of cotton-handkerchiefs 
has been lately set on foot in a ci-devant con- 
vent on the western shore of the Mayenne. The 
climate is here delectable ; the fruits are rich 
and abundant; the surrounding country fur- 
nishes wine in the greatest plenty, some samples 
gf which are scarcely, if at all, inferior to cham- 
paigne ; and in the skirts of the town we meet a 
stupendous slate-quarry of the first quality ; du- 
ring the late murderous struggle, this town being 
seated as it were upon the skirts of La Vendee, 
exhibited many mournful examples of the detes- 
table effects of " heaven-born interference in the 
affairs of France— the accusing spirit had here 
much to do, and the recording angel has filled 
heave ns high chancery with long-— long cata- 
logues of crimes which sea's of tears cannot wash 
out !— Beauties innumerable, which once flou- 
rished and gave dignity to Angers, have been 
totally effaced, and those which remain are mi- 
serably mutilated ! 

It is impossible not to blush as often as we 
pass by erections which by their elevation served 
as fair marks for the enemy, or by their beauty 
commanded respect ! Their fine fronts have been 
pierced by numberless shot^ and the choicest 
1 2 pieces 



116 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

pieces of architecture are shattered to pieces !-- - 
Could the destruction of these chef-dceuvres have 
tended in the smallest degree to advance the 
cause of the besiegers, it would even then have 
been unpardonable ; but when we see, when we 
are assured that all this desolation neither 
straightened the imprisoned patriots in the smal- 
lest degree, nor could profit the royal cause, it 
is impossible not to think of the conductors of 
this execrable warfare but with the detestation 
in which we hold the Turks and Barbarians 
burning the Alexandrian libraries ! 

For a considerable space of time, not less 
than 30,000 cartridges were daily distributed 
among the inhabitants, hemmed in on every side, 
and absolutely on the very brink of famine ;--- 
from the windows of their houses, from the 
ramparts on which from time to time they took 
their busy stations, they gazed on the fields- 
which their own hands had sown, on the vine- 
yards which they had pruned and cultivated, 
loaded with the richest abundance, and serving, 
like water to Tantalus, but to aggravate the 
pining misery which consumed them ! 

One mournful morning being driven to despe- 
ration by their necessities, they rushed furiously 
out of their prison upon their besiegers- —alas ! a 
few of them returned again ere long leaving be- 
hind 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 117 

hind them the slaughtered remains of no less than 
800/ others of families, to say nothing of the youths 
and unmarried men who fell also in this day's 
horrible carnage!— the dreadful distress of the 
evening can only be conceived by those who have 
witnessed similar scenes !— within, without— -all 
was horror and consternation !— one mingled 
uproar of heart-rending cries and lamentations, 
and of triumphant shouts from which the shud- 
dering soul of humanity recoils, filled the air ;-- - 
unsated with blood in the field the victors pursued 
the flying multitudes to the gates, hewing them 
down with relentless cruelty, and deaf as adders 
to the cries and groans with which they begged 
for quarter- —multitudes were of course cut off 
from retreat, and had nothing to do but seek 
for refuge in the fields, the vineyards, and the 
woods ! 

Among these was Mons. P— M— ; when all 
was lost he turned his back upon the field, 
but his victorious foes were betwixt him and his 
family ! ---flying he knew not where ; fainting with 
fatigue and apprehension— his heart bleeding for 
his wife and children who must ere this time 
have concluded him lost, for ever lost to them— 
he stumbled upon a body lying stretched across 
his path ; there was something about it which ex- 
cited his attention— -he turned it round to learn 
if possible whose it was, or rather, had been : by 

I 3 the 



IIS A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

the gleam of moon-shine he recognised the fea- 
tures !— It was his neighbour— it was his friend 
who had fought by his side ! His heavy-laden 
heart wanted not this fresh accession to its mise- 
ry !— As he stood mutely gazing on the appa- 
rently lifeless corpse, he remarked that it did not 
bleed-— that there was no blood on the ground, 
nor marks of violence upon it— a ray of hope 
darted into the mind — " Who knows— there 
may be life yet!" In an instant his bare hand 
was in the bosom of his friend, upon his heart—, 
"oh God! it throbs yet; perhaps he faints like 
myself with fatigue ; perhaps some small relief 
may save him yet !"— But whence was that relief 
to be sought?— it was apparently hopeless ! 
should he quit the senseless body, the Chouans 
would ere long find it, and consummate what 
weariness had begun. — At the risque of his own 
life he dragged it therefore to an adjoining hedge, 
in the bushes of which he concealed it and left 
it! 

In a few minutes he found a cottage; the 
lowly habitation of a female peasant and her 
children ; aware of the direful events of the day 
they had closed their windows, they had barred 
their doors, extinguished the fire on the hearth, 
and the taper which twinkled on the table, and 
crouching around each other in momentary ex- 
pectation of outrage and violence, awaited the 

morning, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 119 

morning.— He knocked; every thing was still 
and silent as the grave.— He knocked louder; 
it was like soliciting entrance into the tomb— an 
hollow echo from within alone replied.— -Shudder- 
ing with horror ; terrified for himself, terrified for 
his friend, he knocked with more impatience 
still. This finally brought the trembling woman 
to her door.— He entreated her to assist him, to 
receive the dying man, and if possible save him. 
Alas ! she knew the vindictive vengeance of the 
conquering party ! she knew that they ransacked 
every dwelling ! ---that to shelter a blue beneath 
her roof was almost to expose herself and her 
children to instant destruction. Happily Mons. 
P— was known to her, and his eloquence pre- 
vailed ! 

She accompanied him to the spot where his 
friend was laid, and they were fortunate enough 
to remove him to the humble mansion ere the 
morning returned. This being accomplished, 
Mons. P--- was then at liberty to provide for 
his own safety.— He fled again ; and had quit- 
ted the house but a short time ere it was surround- 
ed by reeking swords ; but, as if weary of per- 
secution, fortune guided the pursuers to every 
apartment but the apartment in which he had 
concealed his friend— they rummaged every 
corner, they pierced with their bayonets every 
bed, rending the air at the same moment with 
i 4 * their 



ICO A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

their oaths and imprecations, but forgot to visit 
the roof of the adjoining shed. Thus the pity of 
the Eternal sometimes deprives the wicked of 
their judgment, and makes the folly and the 
heedlessness of iniquity the covert of those whom 
he compassionates and protects ! 

But what were the consequences to this tender- 
hearted female ?---It was but a few days ere the 
tables were turned upon the royalists, and this 
poor affrighted being was arrested, conducted 
to Angers, impeached for fostering and cherish- 
ing the Chouans, and in short was almost upon 
the road to the guillotine ! In this distressing 
moment she recollected this adventure— she 
bade one of her children go and find Mons. P-- - 
and tell him that her mother was in prison, friend- 
less, hopeless, just upon the point of falling the 
victim of her humanity ! 

Mons. P— needed no eloquence to move 
him ; the artless story was scarcely told ere he 
was in the midst of the municipal assembly : his 
brows knit with resentment, his eyes flashing 
indignation and vengeance upon her accusers. 
His appeal in behalf of suffering virtue was 
heard :— the proof of patriotism which he ad^ 
duced was irresistible. In fine, he carried the 
widow home with him and restored her to her 

affrighted 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 121 

affrighted infants ! Oh, now I longed for the 
civic crown to place it on his brows ! 

Accustomed thus from day to day, from year 
to year to slaughter and desolation, we cannot 
wonder that the national character at length 
gave way : the most exquisite sensibility may be 
rendered callous ; continual convulsions will 
blunt the keen edge of our sensibilities, and ren- 
der us capable of viewing with apathy and uncon- 
cern, scenes which once could harrow up the 
soul— long ere the termination of the conflict its 
horrid consequences ceased to shock the mind ! 
—Destruction became the order of the day, and 
while the cannon were roaring on their ramparts, 
and platoons were momentarily firing around 
their walls, the theatres were crowded as in the 
profoundest peace ! — Cart-loads of wounded dy- 
ing soldiers, many of them their friends and ac- 
quaintances, though stretching with agony at every 
jolt of their rude conveyance would scarcely at- 
tract the gaze of sympathy in the multitudes who 
thronged by them to the spectacles /—nay, even 
tender and delicate females could so far divest 
themselves of that which is more beautiful than 
personal beauty, (viz.) softness and delicacy, as 
even to walk to the field of battle as to an amuse- 
ment to gaze upon its horrible desolation, and 
even to trample upon the breathless remains of 

those 



122 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* 

those who had been the companions of their in- 
fancy, the sharers of their youthful sports ! 

When we talk of war our minds revert to the 
thousands who are cut off from their country, 
their families, their friends ; but what is the de- 
struction of thousands to mournful effects like 
these upon the survivors?— It is horrible when 
heard of from afar, when in imagination we 
listen to its dismal din and view the garments of 
our friends " rolled in blood ;" but we must fol- 
low in its traces to conceive all its horror.— Ne- 
ver till I found myself in this hapless country had 
my fancy painted to me the thousandth part of 
its accursed deformity :— I had conceived that 
the English prints, to fire the public indignation 
against the abettors of this cruel contest, had 
embellished their stories with fictitious enormi- 
ties ; — would to God I had found it so ! Alas I 
they have given us but " the small dust of the 
balance"' — they have not even collected the most 
atrocious features of it !— " Look, (says Mons. 
La P— ) across the Loir on which we are now 
standing !" My eyes swim with tears and my 
hand trembles while I think of this desolated de- 
partment !— " For twenty leagues square (says 
he) there is not a field in which human blood 
has not been shed!— Not a town, not a village, 
not a chateau, not a church, not a cabin, not a 
roof, has been spared !— In one undistinguished 

desolation 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 123 

desolation all is laid low !— - -Where hospitality 
trimmed the chearful hearth, and loaded the 
smoaking board, silence and solitude alone are 
found— the cry of the wolf, and the screech of 
the owl alone are heard ! At the command 
of the iron-hearted, iron-fa.nged monster, the 
aged and the young, the wounded and the sick, 
those who were labouring in the pangs of child- 
birth, and those who were struggling with the 
agonies of death, were hurried away — a blanket 
the sole remnant of affluence and comfort !— the 
vault of heaven their only canopy !— -the blaze of 
their burning mansions the only light which 
gleamed around them, alas ! which gleamed to 
light them to despair ! 

If we may credit men of temperance, men of 
moderation, if any one can be moderate when 
speaking upon such a subject, not less than 250, 
000 lives were here cast away partly in the field, 
partly in consequence of this general desolation ! - 
To crown the whole, if we may wedit the same 
authority, 250,000,000 sterling of forged assig- 

nats were issued at the same time by the 

in these and the surrounding departments • I will 
not vouch for the correctness of the statement, 
nor will I assert that it formed the data on which 
the downfal of the French finances was so re- 
peatedly prophecied in the British parliament— 
if I mistake not, it was asserted by a great law 

authority 



124 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCP. 

authority, now gone to answer for his crimes, or 
reap the reward of his virtues, that all this was 
perfectly fair, and consistent with the laws of 
war. It is unquestionable, that to this measure 
more than to any other, the French financiers 
ascribe their embarrassments. The distress oc- 
casioned hereby infinitely outstripped every thing 
of the kind produced, by the immense expendi- 
ture, peculation, and mismanagement of the 
war. Royalists and republicans fell alike in one 
common ruin ; where one man sunk down into 
poverty by the grievous pressure of forced loans, 
confiscations, and military outrage, seven were 
rendered bankrupts by this atrocious measure. 
Abettors of the royal cause were one moment 
worth from 10 to 15000 per ann. the next had 
not as many pence. 

But, it is time that I part with these torturing 
scenes to resume the thread of our own adven- 
tures. Having quitted our own carriage, at An- 
gus we embarked in the mail-coach, or rather 
mail-basket, on our return to Paris. You re- 
collect the elegant style in which we travelled from 
la Fleche hither. The mail-coach from Nantz 
is exactly similar to the one above described ; 
to add to our comfort we now entered upon the 
Leve. In my opinion, the most stupendous 
work which France, or almost any other country 
can exhibit ; compared with it, the utmost exer- 
tions 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 125 

tions of the kind which I have elsewhere seen, 
are insignificant and pigmy productions ; if it is 
any where outstripped, it must be in Holland 
and in China. The parts of Anjou, Tourraine, 
and the Orleannois, which border upon the Loire, 
are perfectly flat ; and, in the earlier ages of the 
world, must have formed the vast morass of 
not less than 100 miles in length, and from 20 to 
40 miles wide— so says tradition, and it appears 
extremely probable. 

The Leve is an immense bulwark, raised by 
human hands, to exclude the river from this wide 
extended tract of country, and confine its waters 
within its banks— -and extends from Angus to 
Orleans, perhaps further. Its base may be about 
40 feet wide ; its elevation is nearly 25 do. from 
the adjoining level; and, its upper surface, 
which is paved with large stones, like the streets 
of London, just capacious enough to admit of 
three carriages abreast. 

My enquiries concerning the date of its origin, 
and by whom executed, were unavailing. It is 
to be regretted, that such names should be suf- 
fered to pass away into forgetfulness, while those 
who (instead of becoming benefactors to man- 
kind by works of everlasting utility) prove the 
purses and the scourges of humanity are blazoned 

forth 



126 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* 

forth upon the page of story, revered and ho- 
noured ! 

At about half the distance from Angus to 
Tours, we cross the Loire to dine at Saumiir, 
the most inviting little town which I have yet 
seen in France. I am -not quite certain whether 
it be situated on an island in the river, or on the 
island and the opposite shore, i. e. I am not cer- 
tain whether the town-house, church, &c. which 
seem to constitute the nucleus of a town, be in 
the one or the other. 

A stage-coach is not at all suited to the study 
of topography , nor, is the importunity of French 
porters, or French beggars, which swarm around 
it as soon as it stops, at all calculated to promote 
a disposition for calm investigation;— add to 
which, a good dinner to a man whose nostrils 
have not been greeted with the scent of a kitchen 
for eight hours, is a much more important article 
than the position of a French village. To make 
short of the business, having paid our 50 sous, 
i. e. 25 pence, per head, for an excellent dinner, 
and about six bottles of Burgundy, we came off 
without asking the question. 

There are two bridges across the river in this 
place; the one from the north shore to the 

island 



A TOUR THROUGH TRANCE. 127 

island ; the second, which is very beautiful, from 
the island to the opposite side. As we approached 
the former of these, the detestable mode of har- 
nessing our stallions, which I have elsewhere 
described, had nearly given us (to use sailors 
phrase) " a canf into the river— whether with 
a view to illustrate the Newtonian doctrines of 
attraction and repulsion, or double-charged with 
positive, or negative electricity, I shall not de- 
cide ; be that as it may, our leaders chose here 
to go one one way, the other another ; in conse- 
quence of which, the off-wheel horse tumbled 
down, and was dragged for a considerable dis- 
tance on the ground ere his diverging compan- 
ions could be, persuaded to stop ; power over 
them beyond persuasion, in this case, la postilion 
had not— the more he tugged at the cord tied to 
their bits, the more wide they separated from 
each other : the bye-standers, at length, inter- 
fered—lifted up the poor battered wretch from 
under the wheels, and placed the offenders in 
parallel lines again. I need not say, that the 
causes of all this mischief did not make their ex- 
periments and illustrations for nothing— the ad- 
venture cost Mr. le Postilion about six inches of 
whipcord ; and, the philosophers arrived at the 
end of the stage with their rumps fluted like a 
bedstead— but meek and docile as ever. 



The 



12$ A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE 

The former of these bridges was demolished by 
the Chouans— a temporary one supplies its place 
at present. On the banks of the Loire, villages 
and little towns are numerous ; and the vine- 
yards become more frequent, the plants climb up 
the steepest declivities, and occupy situations 
absolutely incapable of any other culture. The 
elegance with which their long branches project 
from the rock, and swing in the air— the beau- 
teous festoons they form, as they creep from tree 
to tree, and twine their tendrils round the spray 
—the rich luxuriance with which they are not 
unfrequently loaded, infinitely more tempting 
to the eye than ever apple was, form a picture 
absolutely paradisaical ; and parched, as we may 
be supposed to be, the inevitable consequence 
of close packing, dust, and burning sun-shine, 
our forbearance in not stopping to pluck the 
tempting crop, was infinitely greater than ever 
Adam exerted. 

In the midst of these vineyards the habitations 
of the peasantry form very interesting objects. 
The rocks consist of several strata of soft calca- 
rious stone, easily hewn, and perfectly free from 
moisture, even in the most unfavourable states 
of the atmosphere. Availing themselves of this 
circumstance, the Vignerons have excavated im- 
mense hollows, in the cliffs which border the 

road, 
4 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 129 

road, and, by squaring and smoothing the sides 
and roofs, have formed them into dwellings by 
no means contemptible. 

As the evening closed, the candle upon the 
board enabled us to perceive the clean white 
table-cloth— the loaf— -the bunches of grapes— 
the bottle of wine, and the bed, with its snowy 
coverlid, at the bottom of the recess. In short, 
that the mansion, though not constructed by Pal- 
ladio, was by no means deficient in comforts— 
more, than can be said of many a princely pa- 
lace. 

I was here pleasingly disappointed at the mode 
in which the grapes are bruised previous to . the 
press;-— instead of two, or more frowsy galle- 
gds, coarse as a boar's skin, and rank as pole- 
cats, trotting round and round in a vat, and 
bruising the fruit with their feet, as is the case 
in the lurid latitudes of Portugal, where the mo- 
tion of a finger produces a general perspiration 
(rare preparation for squeamish stomachs), here 
the grapes, as they are gathered, are brought 
upon the backs of old women, apparently the 
only beasts of burden of any utility in the vine- 
yard, thrown into a large vessel, and macerated 
with a wooden pestle ; and, as soon as the vessel 
is filled, the whole is then transported to the 
wine-press. 

k At 



130 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

At about nine we arrived at Tours ; the en- 
trance to which is magnificent, and the effect 
grand. If I mistake not, this city having suf- 
fered mournfully by fire, the late unfortunate 
king rebuilt the fronts of the grand vista, through 
which we enter, at. the expence of the nation, 
on condition that the proprietors of the land 
would rebuild the rest of the houses. It was a 
princely donation, and just such a one as the 
nation stood in need of; for, in the midst of all 
its vauntings about taste and elegance, no nation 
upon earth has less of it than the French. The 
houses are all uniform, built of hewn stone, 
with commodious footpaths on each side. 

At one extremity of this superb street, there 
is a bridge of 17 arches, perfectly consistent 
with the elegance to which it leads. At the other 
a long avenue of trees, stretching as far as the 
eye can trace towards Bourdeaux. It is hard to 
conceive how a Frenchman stumbled upon the 
ideas on. which this erection is constructed---I 
add, on which all the bridges on the Loire are 
constructed ; there is not here a particle of taw- 
dry eye-trap---not the smallest display of na- 
tional predilection- --every thing is chaste and 
simple, without an ornament too much, an or- 
nament too little. 



At 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 151 

At Eleven, the following night, we took our 
station in the diligence for Orleans, and were 
sufficiently thankful at being once more mounted 
upon four wheels, after a mode which seemed to 
look something like the dawn or infancy of im- 
provement and civilization. Of the sweet pro- 
spects we have now little to say : the Leve conti- 
nues but much more degrade than in the parts 
over which we had already travelled ; and, the 
four wheels giving us every shock double, we 
were almost disposed to question whether we had 
exchanged diligences for the better or the worse. 
Packed in with ten other passengers, there was 
little danger of losing our seats---not so of break- 
ing our heads- --perhaps it was well that it was 
ni^ht. The solemn stillness of the midnight 
hour imposed silence on our talkative faculties, 
or our tongues might have paid the forfeiture in 
their longitude. 

It may be matter of surprise, that the French 
diligences are thus ever crammed with passen^ 
gers ; but it is easily accounted for---the French 
are too poor to afford themselves any other mode 
of conveyance. The fare from Angus to Paris, 
which are distant from each other 250 miles, is 
no more than 45 franks, or 11. 17s. 6d. to four 
different postilions. A Frenchman gives about 
3d. each. At the inns, it is to no purpose that 
a heavy bill is presented ; he will not pay it— - 
k % add 



132 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

add to which, he will not scruple to pack up 
part of the remnants of the dinner in his hand- 
kerchief against any future emergencies. He 
could scarcely pad it on his own hoofs at so 
cheap a rate. 

At Blois we only tarried to breakfast. I know 
alone, therefore, that there is such a place, and 
that another elegant bridge stretches from it 
across the river, which has also been partly de- 
stroyed by the Chouans : the constant repetition 
of enormities of this description fills my soul with 
indignation. 

As we draw near to Orleans, the declivities on 
both sides of the Loire become more picturesque ; 
there are many enchanting slopes finely wooded, 
and intersected with lawns and vineyards, with 
here and there the chateaus of the country gen- 
try (on situations well chosen) interspersed be- 
tween them. In short, the country here as- 
sumes the aspect of that elegance and comfort to 
which we are habituated in England. In gene- 
ral, the French chateau is very distant from the 
ideas we are accustomed to form of it- --very dis- 
tant from what the sounding-name would lead a 
foreigner to suppose. It is constructed with the 
evident intention of inspiring the beholder with a 
high opinion of its possessor's greatness, and is 
accordingly stretched out to right and left, as far 

as 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 153 

as the builder's purse could possibly afford, and 
not unfrequently much farther, and decorated 
with numberless, cumbersome, giro-crack taw- 
dry ornaments ; but, the general complection of 
it, and every thing around it, betrays the most 
palpable marks of poverty- --the gates and rail- 
ings are all hastening to decay— -the doors and 
sashes seem to be afflicted with the leprosy, in 
other words, the primitive coat of paint, to 
which no addition has ever been made, blisters 
and peels off- --the glass is patched with paper 
pasted on the shattered panes, and, as at Dieppe, 
decorated with flags of abomination, and old 
stockings innumerable— -the ill-constructed sta- 
tues, which are indispensible in the pleasure- 
ground, are generally mutilated— -the walks are 
overgrown with moss- --rank weeds flourish in the 
midst of the grass-plats— in short, the tout- 
ensemble is miserable. As long as the hedges are 
clipped into the most ridiculous formality, and 
shorn of every twig in which a vestige of nature 
can be detected, every thing else seems to be of 
no consequence. The master, whose figure and 
appearance are not much dissimilar to a Green- 
wich-pensioner, thinks himself a paragon of taste, 
and expects the utmost possible admiration from 
all those whose curiosity may lead them to visit 
his domain. 

kS An 



134 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCS. 

An English pleasure-ground is of all undescn- 
bable things, the most undescribable. It is na- 
ture improved by art— -but, with that exquisite 
ingenuity, that the artificial which has been 
adopted cannot be perceived. The French plea- 
sure-ground, on the contrary, seems to have 
been constructed with the express purpose of 
obtruding the art of its projector in its most glar- 
ing and disgusting deformity on view. With us, 
variety is endless— our grounds- are diversified 
as the surface of the earth, and take advantage 
of every inequality— of every tree— of every 
rock-— of every rill, to amuse the eye, and break 
the dull monotony of uniformity. 

In France, one grand avenue leads us up to 
the front of the chateau ; and, its noble rows of 
lofty trees, planted by hands long since moulder- 
ing in the dust, carry our reflections back to the 
ages which are past, to the long train of honour- 
able ancestry which has occupied the same spot- 
so far all is well. Another avenue conducts us 
to some neighbouring wood, with here and there, 
as you pass along, a hornbeam, or a juniper, 
clipped into the shapes of peacocks, with their 
spreading tails— -pillars and pyramids, &c. Ar- 
rived at its center, six other avenues, like the 
rowel of a spur, branch off in as many directions ; 
every tree of which is drilled like regimental re- 

cruits, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 135 

emits, and looks almost as much the work of na- 
ture : it would be a sin against taste were one of 
them to swerve from the most correct geometrical 
exactitude. Behind the mansion the parterre is 
twisted into numberless contorsions, like the 
frame of an old Dutch looking-glass. Its count- 
less little zig-zags, semicircles, lozenges, squares, 
and triangles are planted round with dwarf- box, 
and shorn to the most perfect horizontal level- — 
to combine the utile with the dutce, a few mi- 
serable flowers languish in the midst of pot-herbs 
as miserable ; and the garlic and the rose, equally 
charmente in a Frenchman's nostrils, mingle their 
sweets together, 

It is no little tax upon a mans patience, to be 
dragged round and round through this routine of 
absurdity, and compelled to express his admira- 
tion of what he detests ; some little compliment 
is, however, due to the politeness which accom- 
panies a stranger through it---a politeness, by the 
way, unknown in England ; he -must compromise 
the matter with his conscience as well as he can. 
I had almost forgotten the very acme of folly, 
the labyrinth. This consists of numberless horn- 
beam-hedges, twining round each other to maze 
and bewilder all that enter them. Whatever else 
is in ruins, this is kept close shorn, and diligently 
swept, and a painted board at the entrance for- 
bids you to yield thereto calls which may be of- 

k 4 fens.ive 



136 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

fensive to those who come after you. When we 
consider the genius of the country luxuriantly fer- 
tile in 7W72- naturals, it is astonishing that no one 
has yet stumbled upon the idea of forming these 
trees in casts of plaster ; the plaster might very 
well be constructed of brick, or rather of the 
butt-ends of bullocks shin-bones, the happy ex- 
pedient frequently resorted to in the gardens of 
the harmless cits in the vicinity of the metropo- 
lis. It would render unnecessary that eternal 
sin against nature- --the sheers, and enable the 
seigneur to mend his windows, and paint his 
frame-work. 

To gardens of the description lately mention- 
ed, beauty of situation is by no means necessary, 
the perfect flat is the most eligible, and is accord- 
ingly generally selected. At Belboeuf, near 
Rouen, what may be called the home grounds, 
consist of a fine promontory, jutting out into the 
plain from the high lands, which form the back- 
ground to the city — the two sides and front 
hereof are furnished with most beautifully ver- 
dant slopes — the soft undulations of which, as 
we pursue the sheep-paths through the little 
copses, and over the beetling calcarious points 
which occasionally burst through the turf, feast 
the eye with continual variety and contrast — at 
the foot of it, and, in fact, winding round it, 
rolls the majestic Seine ;-— on the right, the spires 

of 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 137 

of the city, begirt with hills, rise from the midst 
of countless buildings — before us those hills 
stretch far away towards Havre-de-Grace, adorn- 
ed with villages, hanging-woods, chateaus, con- 
vents, and, in short, every thing necessary to a 
fine picture as they go ;-— on the left is spread out 
one continued plain, the bounds of which are 
not to be descried. All this is passed by and neg- 
lected, except every tenth year, when the wood- 
man, with his sacrilegious bill, comes to disho- 
nour nature, and strip her of her beauties. The 
whole attention of the marquess is occupied in 
clipping the stars and gridirons, into which the 
smooth unmeaning summit of this delightfully 
diversified spot has been cut up. 

The park at Sable, and the grounds of the 
Marquis of Juegne, are all laid out in the same 
exquisite manner, and upon the same beautiful 
model ; in short, it is the national taste from which 
I have not yet seen a deviation. The noble man- 
sion of the last-mentioned gentleman is sur- 
rounded with the richest picturesque scenery — 
here the abrupt precipice, with vines twining 
round its weather-beaten points, like the tresses 
on the shoulders of age, overhangs the beauteous 
Sarte — there the gentle slope descends in soft 
undulation to its meandring banks — the convent 
of Soleim, the chateau of Colbert in distant 
view, with many a broad expanse of finely culti- 
vated 



138 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCF. 

vated country, and many a waving wood between 
— not an inch of this Arcadian landscape can be 
seen from any part of the dwelling. The late 
steward formed a terrace at some considerable 
distance in front of the house ; and here, indeed, 
these united beauties burst at once upon the eye, 
but in a manner which never entered into the con- 
ception, or the views of the family; — what is 
called the park, exhibits alone the deformity 
described at Belboeuf. 

We unfortunately arrived at Orleans on the 
eve of the grand national fete at Paris in com- 
memoration of the nativity of the republic. 
Every Frenchman who could possibly find the 
means, made a point of repairing to the raree- 
shew; and, those whose necessities compelled 
them to remain at home, sat there bewailing it, as 
though it were a real and serious calamity — nor 
carriage nor horse were, therefore, to be procured 
for us, and we were fain to rest content at the Trois 
Empereufs till the hubbub should be over — nor 
had we much to regret. Fire-works and illumina- 
tions to a Frenchman ever new, ever charmante, 
soon become insipid to me ; and especially so if 
they are equally tasteless with the Parisian illumi- 
nations, in the sum total of which, if a judgment 
may be formed from the extinguished lamps 
which had not been taken down when we arrived 
in the capital, there is not one happy device. 

Orleans, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 139 

Orleans, though not equally elegant with the 
grand vista passing through Tours, is, with this 
one exception, far better built — far more airy 
and neat. In the center of it, the grand place 
is spacious, and the principal street, which is, 
in like manner, terminated by a noble bridge, 
partly also destroyed by the Chouans, but just 
yields the palm to the principal street of Tours 
above-mentioned. The cathedral is well worth 
visiting — the chapels surrounding the great altar 
are pannelled with wainscot, on which the most 
interesting parts of the New Testament history 
are cut in a masterly manner ; but the two towers 
built at its western extremity by Louis XV. ar- 
rest our principal attention — they are singularly 
beautiful, and, though loaded with ornament, the 
effect is pleasing. From the summit of either 
of them, the view is unique — the whole country 
seems to be one boundless plain covered with 
vines, with the Loire meandring through them. 
An extensive cotton -manufactory was established 
here previous to the revolution, by Philip Eo*a- 
lite, and committed to the care of an English 
gentleman, who has weathered the storm, and 
now carries it on after the English manner with 
considerable spirit. 

It will be recollected, that, at Orleans, the 
British name was tarnished with indelible disgrace 
by the infamous destruction of the female enthu- 
siast, 



140 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

siast, Joan of Arc, who, being taken prisoner, 
was burnt in the market-place, for having beaten 
them, and retrieved the affairs of her country 
after the conquest of it by Henry the Fifth, king 
of England, 

At Estampes, in the Isle of France, the plain 
begins to be broken up — the country becomes 
uneven — the scenery diversified — there are few- 
parts of the republic which are so truly charming 
— the eye need not seek for any thing more beau- 
tiful, and this beauty, for the most part, accom- 
panies us to the gates of Paris, As you approach 
the capital of the republic, big with those ideas 
of its grandeur, opulence, and beauty, with 
which French vanity had inspired your bosom, 
the pleasures of anticipation give way to disap- 
pointment and disgust — in vain you look around 
for the numberless splendid equipages of a do- 
zen different descriptions, which your acquain- 
tance with London leads you to expect in the vi- 
cinity of a great metropolis. In the course of 
the last ten miles you, perhaps, meet as many 
clumsy one-horse chaises, alias cabriolets, num- 
bered on the sides and back like hackney-coaches, 
and crammed with as many men, women, and 
children, as they can possibly contain, who have, 
most probably, taken the vehicle from the stand 
for an afternoon's excursion into the country — 
not but that it is possible some of them may be 

the 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 141 

the private property of the snug parties within 
them — for all the voitures of this description, 
whether public or private, are labelled; nor is 
your disappointment abated when you enter this 
far-famed Gomorrah, and general sink of every 
abomination under heaven, except the carriages 
of the English, who are crowded here by thou- 
sands to the great content of the Parisians, to 
whom their guineas are peculiarly acceptable, 
and a few lumbering tubs, the produce of Paris, 
and tenanted by the children of the revolution ; 
hackney carriages of their several descriptions, 
carts, and trucks alone are met; of these 1000 
coaches, 1500 chariots, and as many cabriolets, 
are constantly plying in the streets ; but, of all 
the detestable and dangerous expedients for 
translation from place to place on which the 
wit of man, or rather his cupidity ever stum- 
bled, the latter is the most dangerous ; the head 
of it is, perhaps, never thrown back — indeed, 
I am not sure that it is capable of that operation, 
and of consequence the driver is as completely 
winked as his horse. This is generally one of 
those noble animals which were furnished, cost 

free, by the of , in Holland ; and, 

being high spirited and generous, it rushes for- 
ward, with astonishing impetuosity, to the ex- 
treme peril of the 10,000 pedestrians, who are 
scattered every moment like coveys of partridges, 

and 



142 A TOUR THROUGH FKAXCL 

and obliged to fly for shelter from the wheels 
into the first entrance which presents itself. 

Arrived at the Bureau des Diligences, had 
you all the eyes of Argus, you would not have 
one to spare. In an instant you and your com- 
panions' are., parcelled out among a herd of 
knaves, who come here, notwithstanding the 
vaunted police of Paris, to prey upon the un- 
wary. One lays hold of your hand, to lend you 
assistance you do not want — two or three seize 
your baggage to hand it down safely, and, unless 
you are as sharp as a pick-pocket, to hand it to 
their own apartments. One pert jackanapes 
clamours in your ear, " shall he get you a fiacre 
mih one or two backs?" Another, " shall he 
guide you to any part of the city ?" Seated, at 
length, in the carriage which vou have chosen, 
with your trunks, &c. piled up before you, a 
porter jumps up beside the coachman, notwith- 
standing you have paid him off already ; and you 
give your driver the name and the number of the 
hotel to which you wish to be conducted — he 
drives you to another — he knows the way for- 
sooth to no other; and, when you have agreed 
for your apartments, at half a louis the more per 
week, for that it is evening, that you are tired, 
and impatient to get rid of the blood-suckers 
who have fastened upon you, he comes forward 

to 
4 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 145 

to demand as many fares as he has made stop- 
pages, and to be paid for carrying you where you 
did not wish to go ; and, though a porter be sta- 
tioned at the gateway of every hotel, whose bu- 
siness it is to take charge of your baggage, the 
one on the box lays his hand on it again, and 
you have the pleasure of paying them both for 
the kind office which you have asked of neither 
of them. 

As soon as you can assure yourself that these 
hungry leeches have done with you, you begin to 
look around, and fetching breath a little, call 
for the carte; this is a large sheet of paper, on 
which the contents of the larder and the cellar 
are indexed, with the prices affixed to them in 
an adjoining, column — a convenience which Lon- 
don cannot boast. While you eat in Paris you 
may easily calculate the price of every morsel, 
and get on with confidence. In London, you 
are at the mercy of the landlord of your eating- 
house ; and, if your pocket be but scantily fur- 
nished, must proceed with trembling for fear of 
the consequences. Abating the little extortion 
to which you are compelled to submit in the price 
of your apartments, you will have no reason to 
complain. The charges of living are according 
to your own choice ; and, the expence of a table 
furnished in your accustomed style, will be about 
- 50 per cent, less than in an English hotel. 

In 



144 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

Ill Paris, for the first time since I quitted old 
England, have I seen fine beef. It is not no- 
ticed, indeed, every 20 minutes, as in the Bri- 
tish metropolis; but, that which is exhibited, 
cannot be surpassed. 

This carte belongs to the traiteur, i. e. to a 
person whose business it is to dress dinners for 
the company in the house, and as many families 
in the vicinity as chuse to give orders for them, 
which, by the bye, is very much the practice in 
all the large French towns ; and, considering 
the moderate profits with which the citoyen is 
content, it is by no means a bad one : by this ex- 
pedient the mistress of the family escapes three 
hours fretting every morning, and her dinner is 
much better dressed than if she had half-roasted 
and parboiled herself during the process. 

Ere I quit the eating part of our adventures, I 
must not forget to add, that there is in Paris 
another admirable provision for operations of 
this order, viz. at the restorateurs, i. e. in other 
words, at the ordinary's ; but, when we make 
use of this expression, it must not be imagined 
that the Parisian ordinaries, and the ordinaries in 
the vicinity of London, are upon a par. They are, 
it is true, of different ranks, and, perhaps, some 
of them may be little superior to those of High- 
gate and Edmonton — but there are others which 

rival 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 145 

rival princely elegance and luxury, and which 
are resorted to by foreigners and Parisians — by 
ladies and gentlemen of the first fortune and 
character. The splendor of the tables in those 
of the Palais de Tribunal is absolutely dazzling ; 
every delicacy which the season affords is there 
brought forward, and wines of the richest qua- 
lity for libations. The bills are proportioned to 
the rank and dignity of the house. 

The first business in the morning, after the 
traveller has somewhat surmounted the fatigues 
of his journey, is to find out Mons. Perageux, 
in order to change his paper into aurum palpabile. 
This gentleman is presently found out on the 
Boulevards, living in a palace, the view of which 
carries a sort of presentiment to the heart of the 
squeezing which awaits the purse. Papers being 
produced, and the accustomed preambles gone 
through, Mr. P/s representative asks you in 
what you will be paid — paper, silver, or gold ? 
Not being as yet up to the tricks of the trade, 
you incautiously reply " in Louis.'" Well, in 
about five minutes, my gentleman having gone 
to another office for the cash, returns. " The 
course of Exchange is so and so against you (about 
five per cent) ; and, as for the Louis, we pur- 
chase them for the accommodation of travellers ; 
you have, therefore, to lose one per cent more 
en this account" To crown the whole, having 

l been 



146 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

been feathered thus of 6 per cent, you withdraw 
with your precious pieces ; but, no sooner do you 
present one of them for payment, than out comes 
the scales and weights ; they are generally light, 
and you have the further satisfaction of losing 
from threepence to fourpence-halfpenny more 

upon most of them. So much for Mons. P . 

I will, however, do his representative the justice 
of saying, that his conscience does not appear 
to be absolutely insensible of the pityful impo- 
sition. His forehead seems to betray the smart 
of certain unpleasant twinges within, which an 
English banker of reputation would disdain to 
feel. 

The scarcity of gold just hinted at is extemely 
incommodious and embarrassing. The bills of 
credit which I took from England were of 25 
pounds sterling value each : one only of these 
converted into crown-pieces, after all the fleec- 
ing of the French bankers, is quite enough to 
fill a man's waistcoat-pockets to the brim ; and, 
if he has not had the precaution to obtain of 
Mons. Perageux a canvas-bag wherein to deposit 
his treasure, for which, probably, another one 
per cent, would be deducted, you may see him 
punning along the streets, on his return from the 
Boulevards, his hands clasped under his b — y, 
like an old cobler whose back 60 years of hard 
labour have bent down to the last, or rather 

like 



A TOUR THROUGHFrANCE. 147 

like an hospital-patient groaning under the ope- 
ration of some harsh and irritating medicine — 
for, should the luckless - seams give way, there 
would be an hundred sharers in the booty in a 
moment. 

Being one morning at the caisse de commerce 
to exchange a French bill of 500 livres, a per- 
son, with rather an Israelitish phiz, was receiv- 
ing what might, perhaps, amount to 10001. He 
was paid in canvas-bags filled with crowns, con- 
taining, probably, about 40 or 451. each, which 
were thrown separately into a large scale, and 
from thence into bags of greater dimensions. 
To transport this sum to his own house was the 
work of himself, two porters, and a cart, with 
the wreck of his cash in his pocket, or rather in 
his trunk. John Bull turns round to see what 
is to be seen, and to enquire for the mighty 
changes which have been made, but presently 
finds, to use a vulgar proverb, " there has been 
here a great cry and little wool* 

All traces of royalty are effaced; and equally 
effaced are all traces of republicanism— the soul 
of which is comfort to the multitude, if we ex- 
cept the immense boards of Fraternity, Liber- 
ty, Equality, painted on them, which meretri- 
ciously obtrude themselves upon your notice 
every five minutes, as though the government 

l 2 were 



145 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

were afraid that the people, were they not con- 
stantly reminded of their bliss, should long for 
the flesh-pots of Egypt — or perhaps it concludes, 
that the French, like some other nations which 
might be mentioned, as long as they are indulged 
with the forms and the shadows of golden ages 
passed away, will still go on to persuade them- 
selves that they are free. 

We heard much, a few years since, of the 
unfeeling brutality of the old noblesse, and were 
triumphantly told, by the infuriated jacobins, 
how many wretches were trampled to death at 
the coronation of the king— how many were an- 
nually crushed beneath the chariot-wheels of the 
privileged orders, &c. &c. &c. The privileged 
orders now, indeed, trample them to death no 
longer ; but, what has the canaille gained by the 
change ?-— Why, the privilege of trampling upon 
one another. 

There is a little work, lately published in 
Paris, entitled Paris et ses Curiosites, for the 
accommodation of strangers. The writer of it 
confesses, that the drivers of the nacres, when 
they happen to alight on women, or men of 
peaceable demeanour, are as abusive as ever. 
From my own experience, I know they make as 
little conscience as ever of driving their horses 
full tilt over women, meak-spirited men, and 

what- 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 149 

whatever may be in their way if it endangers 
not their own safety. I had not been 24 hours 
in Paris when I was put in the most imminent 
danger of my life by one of these jehus ; and, it 
was not 24 hours more ere I was a mournful 
spectator of, I fear, the exit of a fellow-creature, 
who was first knocked down, and then passed 
over by a cabriolet. For a moment there was 
some little sputtering betwixt the cause of this 
mischief and the populace, when, snatching up 
the reins again, he drove off at his wonted rate, 
leaving the hapless victim on his back— his arms 
stretched out— -silent— and motionless ! Indeed, 
continual accidents, were there the reality as well 
as the name of a police in this city, would be 
prevented. 

The streets are dark, narrow, tortuous, ill— 
paved, and filthy; here men, women, children, 
horses, asses, coaches, cabriolets, carts, wheel- 
barrows, are all mingled together in one confused 
hurly-burly, mutually splashing and incommod- 
ing each other ; for, be it recollected, that Paris 
is just as well furnished with common-sewers as 
Rouen- --every abomination which can be en- 
dured no longer in the house is cast into the 
street— -here waste-water of every description— - 
the scourings of the manufactories— the blood 
of the slaughter-houses— the contents of the 
&c. &c. in short, every thing imagination can 
i. 3 conceive 



150 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

conceive offensive and detestable is united in one 
balmy tide, which slowly creeps reeking along 
the midway of every street towards the Seine, 
thence to be brought back again for the beverage 
of the thousands who jostle one another upon its 
banks. This floating pestilence furnishing a 
surer footing to the horses than the shelving 
pavement on either side of it, it is most com- 
monly chosen for them, especially for those 
drawing in the cabriolets, which moving gene- 
rally at the rate of 10 miles per hour, most libe- 
rally sprinkle this holy water among the scudding 
multitude, 

Mirabeau observed, long since, that England 
was the only country in the world where the pe- 
destrian was accounted any thing ; the changes, 
in the accomplishment of which he had so large 
^a share, have not bettered the condition of his 
countrymen in this respect in the smallest degree. 
There are few streets in Paris from which the 
deduction of a very moderate foot-path would 
leave room for two carriages to pass by each 
other; and, in the few instances in which the 
foot-passenger may be accommodated, no one 
thinks of it. Of course there is here no protec- 
tion whatever from the wheels of the cabriolets ; 
if you cannot fly for shelter into some open door, 
your only resource is to strain yourself up be- 
hind one of the buttress-stones which are placed 

% for 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 151 

for the protection of the wall ; and, should there 
be no one at hand, or the projection you carry 
before you be tolerably prominent, it is well for 
the attornies if your will is not already made. 

Nor, is this all : the principal commerce of 
Paris seems to-be in wood— at least I saw nothing 
else in the barges upon the river. This wood is 
brought in cart-loads from the quays, which are 
excellent, and cast down before the purchaser's 
doors ; and the carters universally take special 
care never to leave any interstice betwixt the pile 
of fuel they have brought and the wall. Add to 
this, great part of the space betwixt the houses 
and Lethe is occupied, for the most part of the 
day, by frame-workers, mattress-menders, and 
similar occupations, ta the great annoyance of 
the public, who are obliged, every five minutes, 
to tack and retack around them, and across the 
odious congregate, in order to get along. The 
soil accumulating on the sides of which, being 
continually sprinkled by the splash of the horses 
feet, it feels like soap beneath your tread, and 
is continually tripping up your heels. 

There are gens darms stationed at every place 
of amusement to drill the public, male and fe- 
male, as they arrive, and bayonet them into 
good order; were some of them enjoined to 
bayonet these public nuisances into their houses, 

L 4 I should 



152 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

I should think more highly of the vaunted police 
of Paris. It is impossible then for a Londoner 
to pace the metropolis of France but with ideas 
very much to the disadvantage of the latter. 
When he compares the order and regularity — the 
ease and security— the convenience and accom- 
modation — and, above all, the cleanliness to 
which he has been accustomed, with the chaos 
into the midst of which his predominating stars 
have now led him, his mind will be filled with dis- 
gust and aversion ; and the favourable ideas with 
which he once thought of the Frenchmen, to 
speak like an Englishman, will be 50 per cent, 
below what they were ere he quitted his native 
island ; nor will they mount up to par again— 
when quitting the streets he visits the apartments 
of the bourgeois. 

It has been said, that " evil communications 
corrupt good manners. 1 ' Heaven knows ! that 
a Parisian's house is quite congruous with the 
streets, on the edge of which it is erected (whe- 
ther he ever had a taste for cleanliness or not is 
questionable). Its wretchedness is extreme ; in 
short, Paris is one vast assemblage of grand 
erections, and of twice ten thousand miserable 
apartments piled up to the clouds, tenanted with 
poverty, which crowds around the favourites of 
fortune to pick up the crumbs of the table, and 
vegetate upon servility. The one is princely — 

the 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 153 

the other the product of heart-broken necessity, 
and aspires no farther than to shelter necessity 
from the inclemencies of the seasons. The latter 
are frequently seven stories high, generally six, 
portioned out by as many families, who are 
alone connected together by one common stone 
stair-case, the property of the whole ; and, of 
course, as all are equally interested in its clean- 
liness and propete, it may be supposed its aspect 
is delectable. Short petticoats will be very con- 
venient for the ladies who ascend it in search of 
their milliners and man tua-makers— -Thieves' 
vinegar a very proper accompaniment ; and, let 
them beware of swerving from the strait line of 
their march to right or left, and of breaking their 
shins against the pots cU chambre, which are in- 
fallibly on the one side or the other. The floors 
are composed of brick-work, which being pre- 
viously sprinkled with a little water, the dust and 
filth are swept once a day, perhaps, into the ge- 
neral reservatory, the chimney, there to wait 
the grand annual purgation of fire at the com- 
mencement of winter— -of the front I shall say 
little. 

My description of Dieppe may here be very 
properly transcribed. It is commonly washed 
with an odious solution, perhaps of ochre— -the 
crevices, cornices, and gimcracks are crammed 
with dust and cobwebs— on the glass the accu- 
mulated 



154 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

mulated and undisturbed filth of ages not only 
defeats transparency, but almost invites vege- 
tation. 

Among the rising gradations of the Bourgeois, 
there are some few, indeed, the floors of whose 
apartments are parqueted, that is, floored with old 
planks, framed together something after the pat- 
tern of the parterre ; but, never since they were 
laid, have they been rendered damp and un- 
wholesome by ablution. The scrubbing-brush 
is a luxury which has not yet found its way into 
France ; and the sweet music of mops and 
buckets, charming Saturday-night concert to 
many a patient Benedict as he sits rocking the 
cradle, has not here been heard— not that it is 
not wanted. 1 

The French are very much addicted to smoak- 
ing ; their tobacco is extremely pungent, and ill- 
flavoured ; the salivation it produces is therefore 
profuse ; of this le citoyen disencumbers himself, 
sans ceremonie, in all companies, and in all 
places ; and, not only this, other secretions de^ 
scending from a higher source are as freely dis- 
tributed. Look where you will, your offended 
eyes have no refuge— the floors are disfigured, 
from side to side, with the " marks of the beasts' 
who have gone before you. Instead of washing 
away this abominable obscenity, the planks are 

waxed 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 155 

waxed and dry-rubbed, till wax and filth accu- 
mulating coat upon coat, the spade" becomes al- 
most as necessary as the apparatus of the chair- 
woman ; nor is this detestable custom confined 
to the lords of the creation-— those w T ho have 
been formed of nature's finest mould are as much 
addicted to it as the males, and bestow their 
foetid favours as plentifully— I say fcetid, for it 
is impossible to brave the full blast of a pair of 
French lungs ; one and all they stink most abo- 
minably, and every respiration puffs out such 
gales of garlic and indigestion as pestilence lurk- 
ing below alone could produce !— This is, per- 
haps, one reason why they are so doatingly fond 
of scents and bouquets in their bosoms. 

At Rouen, scarcely a male or female were seen 
without one, and they have need enough of 
them. In fact, with all their affectation of po- 
liteness, in which the modest creatures arrogate 
to themselves the precedence, the manners of 
the French are as gross as Hottentots : they 
have no conception of, they have no relish for, 
what are usually stiled the common decencies of 
life. 

The emigrant clergy while in England, were 
remarked for the slovenly squalidness of their 
attire, and the immense quantities of snuff with 
which they regaled themselves ; and: their hand- 
kerchiefs 



156 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

kerchiefs were winded from afar; it seemed to 
be the effect of their unhappy state ; exiled 
from their native country ; dependent upon the 
charity of strangers ; despoiled of the comforts 
of friendship ; desolate and undone — for dejec- 
tion and neglect commonly tread on each other s 
heels ! — But see them now returned to their fa- 
milies ; taken under the protection of the go- 
vernment ; reinstated in their parishes ; depend- 
ant no longer upon the charity of strangers; they 
are squalid as ever — the " flag of abomination' 
is filthy as ever, and they are admirable samples 
of their flock — male and female they are conti- 
nually displaying this disgusting piece of obsce- 
nity before you ! 

My very soul revolts as often as- 1 see them 
fumbling in their pockets, and I am compelled, 
as if by instinct, to repair to mine, that I may 
grasp unseen my indignant nose, and prevent the 
consequences my boiling stomach prepares ! 

It might be expected that elegantes at least are 
to be exempted from this sweeping censure: — no 
— women, young, and beautiful as angels, are 
thus seen every moment practising what would 
outrage the stomach of a Calmuc. The flag of 
abomination is not indeed displayed with equal 
effrontery ; suspended at the wrist of her bare- 
headed attendant, (for no gentleman would 

wear 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 157 

wear his hat, even in a thunder-storm) hangs 
what is emphatically called a ridicule, and as 
often as her nostrils are overcharged, or the 
throat is tickled by the swallowed tabac, she 
draws open the orifice of her portable dunghill, 
discharges the peccant humours into it, tightens 
the bobbins again, and returns it to her compa- 
nion. 

There are humiliating views of human nature 
observable in every country across which philan- 
thropy would willingly cast its mantle — but when 
the character is compounded of shining excel- 
lence and gross impropriety, both the one and 
the other must be thrown into the scale when we 
would appreciate it : add to which the only pro- 
bable mode of goading mankind into the refor- 
mation of deformities which lower the national 
respectability, is to hold them up in all their na- 
tive hatefulness to ridicule and detestation!— this 
must be an apology for what ensues ! 

It will scarcely be credited, that to many of 
the essentials of comfort, to say nothing of dig- 
nified convenience and elegance, the " great 
nation" are as completely estranged as the Welch 
and Irish peasantry. In those who have been ac- 
customed to English inns alone and their con- 
veniences, far superior to those of a continental 
palace ; it will excite a nauseating disgust when 
5 they 



155 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

they are told, that in French hotels of princely 
magnificence, where your dinner is constantly 
served up on ponderous plate, not a water-closet, 
nor its fixed, or portable substitute shall be 
frequently found ; nor in fact are the dwellings 
of private individuals much better accommo- 
dated ; a few only of those who have crossed the 
channel, served in the campaigns in Holland, or 
heard of the contrivance from afar, ever dream 
of erecting in some snug corner a fane to Cloa- 
cina, where her mysteries may be performed in 
pure air and privacy ; and those few erect it but 
to blush for the filthiness of their compatriots, 
and tantalize themselves. 

v Whether the diarhcea be the curse of the coun- 
try, or its inhabitants feel innate aversion to the 
goddess, I will not determine : it is certain that 
they never approach her altar but in the very pa- 
roxysm of urgent necessity— the consequences 
must not be detailed ; they lay a heavy tax upon 
the sight and upon the nostrils ! — I will only add 
that the genius of cleanliness would as soon ap- 
proach the gridiron of St. Lawrence, as the bench 
4 of a French' commodite. 

Much has been said of the perfect ease and 
freedom of the one sex when in company with 
the other.— Sterne, in his account of his little 
excursion in Madame Ramboulliet's carriage, 

gives 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 159 

gives us one of their grossiertes which it is im- 
possible to take an evening's walk upon the bou- 
levards at Rouen without frequently encounter- 
ing. — Ladies of fashion, rank, and character, 
think nothing there of quitting the arm on which 

they were leaning to the " thirsty 

glebe" In short, they think nothing of being 
seen in situations which would crirrison the cheeks 
of our lovely country-women with blushes and 

confusion. Dining at A with a large party 

of friends, during the interval between dinner 
and cafe the gentlemen took a walk into the ad- 
joining garden — presently one of the ladies, who 
had been of the party, an elegant, amiable, and 
accomplished woman, came up to us, and en- 
quired if there were a little nameless apartment 
at hand : one of the gentlemen gave her some in- 
formation upon the subject, and she withdrew. — 
In a moment she returned with a sort of reproach- 
ful smile upon her countenance — she had mis- 
taken his instructions, entered at another door 
from under which the floor had been taken up 
for the purpose of being repaired; and but just 
escaped plunging into the abyss below ! The 
gentleman, after begging her pardon for not 
having been more explicit, took her by the hand 
and led her to the proper spot — made her his 
best bow, closed the door, and withdrew : — ere 
long she joined us again with Iwni soit qui mat y 
pense upon her countenance. — " Every natioh 

(says 



160 A TOUR THROUGH FRAXCK. 

(says Sterne) has its grossiertes ; and many things 
(he adds) gave him pain, that he blushed at 
many a word the first month which he found in- 
consequent and perfectly innocent the second." — 
I will not say that perfect ease like this is in- 
consequent ; it is matter of doubt with me — the 
elegant enjoyment of life depends in a great de- 
gree upon the unviolated preservation of its de- 
cencies; and every indulgence which trespasses 
upon them should be watched with a jealous eye, 
and meet the severest reprehension — the difficulty 
lies in ascertaining where the line is to be drawn 
between culpable freedom on the one hand, and 
fastidiousness upon the other : — but, if aversion 
to constraint leads the French into freedoms 
which are offensive, and perhaps pernicious to 
good morals, the affectation of superlative re- 
finement puts the English into trammels which 
are destructive to health and life ! 

In a mixed company, the accidental rencontre 
with the garniture of a French stair-case, would 
put the whole party to the rout, overwhelmed 
with consternation and dismay : — it matters not 
when we are assembled together, that nature 
pleads her wants, decorum forsooth pleads her 
wants more eloquently, and the struggle termi- 
nates in a stranguary ; a diseased circulation ; 
untimely death ! it is an outrage to friendship to 
dismiss every idea of deference and restraint in 

its, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* ljl 

its presence ; but it is an infinitely greater outrage 
to cherish unnatural and idle affectation at an 
expence which curtails the thread of life, and 
consequently of happiness to those who dwell in 
our smiles. — I would not dispense with audacious 
indulgence ; at the same time I must say, that 
there is nothing gross in silently withdrawing for 
a few moments from society; and he that blush- 
es at such a step in himself or others has infinite- 
ly more room to blush for his own diseased de- 
licacy, I had almost said his own depraved mind. 

But in pursuing the manners of the French, I 
have suffered myself to be insensibly drawn 
away from my observations upon the metropolis 
of the republic. — As I have little to add upon 
that topic which is not abundantly better said 
elsewhere, I will therefore return to it, and 
give you below what I have yet to say of the city, 
its agremens et curiosites, and continue my re- 
marks upon the people. * 

In 



* I have given above a long list of agreeable circumstances 
which render Paris a most grateful sejour, especially to the 
pedestrian : I will add one article more to the catalogue, and 
then turn to the reverse of the medal.. -The waters of the Seine 
it will be concluded from what has been said, must form a most 
inviting compound : the numberless salutary ingredients min- 
gled together in the open gutters which occupy the midway of 

m every 



172 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

In the family there is a very great and distin- 
guishing difference betwixt the manners of the 

French 



every street, and are thence conveyed into this grand recepta- 
cle, must necessarily render its stream admirably limpid and 
delectable. This ambrosial beverage is partly forced back into 
the city engenes, and partly brought up by water-carriers and 
vended from door to door: in addition to which there are 
about sixty public fountains bringing their tribute from afar for 
the accommodation of the inhabitants. These waters> as well 
as the waters of the Seine running constantly upon a bed of 
gypsum, dissolve the peculiar acid which enters into the com- 
position of that fossil, and arrive at their destination in the high- 
est order for the production of the gripes and cleansing the in- 
testine, and seldom fail to do it with a vengeance till the 
stranger is habituated to the use of them. This is an inconve- 
nience of the first magnitude ; and it is astonishing, that while 
the Bourbons were squandering the public money from gene- 
ration to generation in works absolutely useless to themselves 
and to the world, not one of them thought of giving whole- 
some water to his impoverished slaves — strange that a work of 
this description so imperiously demanded, and which would 
give a title to the everlasting gratitude of the capital to him 
who should accomplish it, should be reserved for a Corsican 
adventurer. This is one among ten thousand evidences, that 
previous to the revolution the people were accounted nothing ; 
their comfort and accommodation went for nothing; the capa- 
cious mind of Bonaparte could not fail to perceive what the 
former dynasty never comprehended, or did not think worth 
attaining. He has adopted the idea of a new river similar to 
that which the immortal but unfortunate Sir Hugh Middieton 
gave to the ungrateful citizens of London at the expence of his 
owr fortune; and having " conquered peace" instead of permit- 
ting 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 173 

French and the English. The use of tea has 
amongst the latter been attended with an effect 

which 



ting his victorious bands to enervate themselves in the casernes, 
or study depravity in the brandy-shops of the metropolis, and 
large towns of the republic, he has appointed them to the task 
of carrying his benevolent plans into execution ; may the next 
work on which he employs his heroes be the digging common 
sewers through the city ! It has been said, that Paris exceeds 
London in its royal and other palaces. In the first respect the 
matter admits not of debate; but, in the second, there are few 
indeed of the chatcaus of the ci-devant noblesse which must be 
compared with the town-houses even of our untitled gentry. 
The Thuilleries, once the residence of the unfortunate Lewis 
XVI. now of the chief consul, and ever memorable for the mas- 
sacre of the Swiss guards, the fatal traces of which mournful 
event are even now to be decyphered upon the walls, as a 
piece of architecture has in my opinion nothing to recommend 
it: it is vast, gloomy, and cumbersome ; since the affair of the 
infernal engine, by which not less than seventy people were 
destroyed, and many houses shattered to ruins, the Rue de Ne- 
caise in which the explosion took place, and several others, have 
been obliterated like Babylon from the face of the earth : by 
this means the carousel has been thrown open, and an immense 
square formed in the front ©f the palace. An iron-railing, lately 
erected, partitions off a large court immediately before it from 
the grand place, and here the consular life-guard is constantly 
stationed. On the four pillars which support the two gates 
at each extremity of the grate, are mounted the celebrated Ve- 
netian horses : they were cast by Lysippus at Rhodes now 3000 
years since. On the subjugation of that island by the conquer- 
ors of the world, they were transported to Rome ; when the 
seat of empire was translated from thence to Byzantium, these 
M 2 horses 



174 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

which appeals to the heart of sensihility — it as- 
sembles a whole family around the parental 

board, 



horses were translated thither also.; Constantinople being 
sacked by the Venetians they formed part of the spoil which 
the victors carried away with them ; and Venice, in its turn, 
falling a prey to the " great nation" they have been brought 
now to grace the banks of the Seine : these statues have there- 
fore never moved but in consequence of some great political 
change: how long they will rest upon the pedestals which now 
support them, lime must shew. The gardens of Thuilleries 
are much vaunted ; rich in statuary they certainly are, but pos- 
sesi nothing else worthy of admiration— they are remarkable 
alone for dullness, and monotonous uniformity. 



Viewed from the east, the Louvre presents a front in prajse 
of which it is almost impossible to say too much : it is the very 
acme of architecture. The colonade which ibrms this superb 
facade was built by Louis XIV. upon the plans of Claude Pe- 
rault. The Corinthian pillars which support the entablature, 
are finely proportioned, and exquisitely executed; the effect is 
magnificently grand, and would probably lose nothing by a 
comparison with the finest remains of accomplished antiquity ; 
from its infancy this splendid palace has been devoted to the 
elegant "arts. The plunder of Holland, Flanders, and Italy, 
is here treasured up, and to the statuary and the painter, the 
Louvre is become perhaps the most interesting museum upon 
the earth: whatever be the fate of Bonaparte, his exertions, 
wheiher to be applauded or not, have succeeded in turning the 
current of genius, which, since the revival of the arts had been 
flowing toward the south of Europe, towards Paris; and secured 
• to it the constant resort of taste and elegance, and consequently 
the influx of weajth. 

In 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 1/3 

board, and presents the truly interesting specta- 
cle of the affectionate circle welcoming each 

other 



In the court of the Louvre, the patriot and the manufacturer 
are presented occasionally with a spectacle no less interesting. 
Annually the internal square is surrounded for one. decade, about 
the end of September with temporary arcades, the several com- 
partments of which are tenanted by artists of various descrip- 
tions, who here display specimens and samples of their differ- 
ent productions; the idea is happy ; at a very trifling expense 
an animating spur is given to emulation, and it tells the people 
of what they are capable, who see here the progress and the 
gradations of improvement. The chief consul of course ho- 
nours the exhibition with his inspection, and the crowds which 
resort to it are innumerable : a Briton must not, however, be- 
lieve every thing he is here told ; it may be a little trick of state 
jockeyship, but it is much more likely to be a petit morceau of 
French vanity. Manufactures are here exhibited, as the pro- 
ductions of French looms which were woven at Manchester and 
Gfascow. 

The Palais du Tribunal (ci-devant Palais Rovale) was built 
by cardinal Richlieu. It has undergone many change 1 :, and 
was almost entirely rebuilt by the late duke of Orleans. " The 
garden, (says a Frenchman) bien planie et onie rles super bes 
orangers (i. e. divided into long ailes like a gridiron with here 
and there a cross-bar cutting it up into little squares fenced 
around with railing like Smilhfield pens containirg each an 
orange-tree half suffocated with the powdered chalk, and a few 
miserable China listers, and field-larkspurs struggling hard for 
life) is seated in the centre of pleasures and business, and is the 
general resort of strangers : those elegant shops which present 
yoq with every luxury of commerce and a:ts; ihose coffee- 
M 3 houses 



176 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

other on their escape from the dangers of the 
night ; sitting down to one common repast, and. 

with 



houses superbly decorated ; the libraries ; the gaming-houses; 
the places of amusement ; the long galleries where glide along 
throngs of captivating nymphs, adorned with equal taste and 
elegance; every thing conspires to make this palace an en- 
chanting abode ["—He might have added, the very paradise 
of dissipation, profligacy, and vice ! 

The Hotel des Invalids is worth visiting : the dome is superb; 
here rest the ashes of Turenne, which have been removed from 
St. Denis, where they had been slumbering with the remains of 
kings. 

The church of Notre-Dame is perhaps the largest in Europe, 
but having been despoiled of its precious paintings by the revo- 
lution, it is now visited only as a curious monument of antient 
architecture: the stalls in the choir possess some beautiful 
sculptures in bass relief: but of all the specimens of beautiful 
architecture which Paris possesses, the pantheon, seated at the 
top of the Rue de St. Jacques, certainly takes the highest place. 
It is sublimely elegant, enchantingly beautiful, and cannot I 
think be surpassed. 

The Theatre de POpera is accounted the first in Europe ; the 
decorations are magnificent, the dresses rich, and the music 
and the talents of the performers of high and distinguished 
merit. 

The chef-d'ceuvres of Racine, Corneille, Moliere, Voltaire, 
are represented at the Theatre Francais, and give the amateur 
the completest idea of the French drama ; but convenience is 

sacrificed 

5 

\ 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 177 

with chearful smiles sharing with one another 
what the bounty of heaven bestows — not so in 
France : the table is here spread and plentifully 
covered with bread and butter, dried meat, eggs, 
salt-fish, fruit, wine, but those who are to par- 
take of the banquet drop in, in the most comfort- 
less manner, and snatch a repast which has no- 
thing to recommend it but its power to satiate a 
craving appetite. 

On extraordinary occasions they assemble 
more en masse; and then poultry and game 
smoking hot from the kitchen are added ; and 
should an English or a Dutchman be of the par- 
ty, coffee and tea crown the whole ; the latter 
commonly prepared in the saucepan like a cauli- 
flower or a cabbage : but though the table is 
sumptuously covered, the stranger not being 
much in the habit of eating with his fingers, 



sacrificed to appearance in the construction of the house; the 
galleries are supported by an unnecessary multitude of ionic 
pillars which separate the boxes ; viewed from the stage, the 
coup d'oeil must be grand, but the size of the pillars contribute 
little to the convenience of the spectators, who sit behind them. 
At this theatre we have no music, and the scenes are never 
shifted ; whatever parts the performers have to exhibit, how- 
ever inconsistent, are represented in the parlour with chairs and 
tables for mountains, woods, and rural scenery. But it is end- 
less to particularize every thing worth seeing in Paris. 

M 4 finds 



178 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

finds himself at a loss how to get on : spoons arc 
plenty; his knife he is expected to carry with him, 
and nothing can be more gross and inelegant 
than the use of it, especially in the hands of the 
ladies ; to say nothing of the obvious incongruity 
of a fine formed alabaster arm wielding with the 
air and prowess of a butcher an immense un- 
clasped stiletto, the view of which spirits up in- 
fallibly the idea of robbery, bloodshed, murder, 
what can be more offensive, what more detesta- 
ble, than perhaps a dozen of them all around 
you tarnished with numberless filthy unctions, the 
accumulated operation of many a well-waged 
conflict drawn from the receptacle of abomina- 
tion, the ridicule, powdered with snuff; per- 
haps anointed by the delicate monchou, beneath 
which it has softly slumbered since the last meal ; 
the idea is filthy ; but it is impossible that it 
should not occur as often as one of these gentle 
beings proposes to help you to any thing before 
her. 

At dinner, in like manner silver forks and 
spoons are always ready on demand, and be- 
neath your plate is laid a snowy napkin, changed 
as often as you please ; and be the dishes on the 
table numberless as the frogs in Egypt, plates, 
clean as the art and mystery of scullery can 
render them, await your call : but with one 

knife 



A TOUR THROVGH FRANCE. 1 79 

knife alone must you fight through all the battles 
of the campaign. 

Before you commence the business of the sit- 
ting, you spread your serviette upon your lap, or, 
like a full-fed alderman tuck it under your chin ; 
and here you sometimes wipe it yourself, and 
sometimes — < — your nose accus- 
tomed to as many shining knives as there are 
forks and plates, this deficiency is disgusting ! 
The stomach revolts at resuming the instrument 
with which you have just dispatched a goose, 
perhaps, and scented with its sauce, to plunge 
it again into the side of a carp, or jack, and 
thence double-dosed with congruous flavours 
into the breast of a chicken, a partridge, or a 
hare ; for in this order things frequently arrive 
at table — in fact at table, as on the stair-case, it 
is better to look right a-head only without re- 
garding what passes on your right-hand and 
your left; and be sure, if possible to carve for 
yourself. But if the ladies' knives incommode 
your sight, this is all the inconvenience to which 
you will be subjected at a French dinner.— I 
had been warned not to peep into a French 
kitchen— I wish the English kitchen could bear 
an equally rigorous examination ! 

At Sable', I was so situated as to be under the 

necessity of frequently passing and re-passing 

2 through 

o 



180 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

through this paradise of epicurean delight ; but 
never have I seen aught there which bade me 
repeat the same caution to others : having dis- 
patched a temperate, though sumptuous meal ; 
(I say temperate, for a Frenchman never makes 
you blush for your species by gluttony or drunk- 
enness), cafe and liqueurs await them in an ad- 
joining apartment ; and a supper, correspond- 
ent to the breakfast, finishes the labours of the 
day. 

The distribution of a napkin to every guest, 
though not indispensible in England, where 
knives are plenty, as in France where they are 
scarce, is elegant and acceptable ; and equally 
acceptable is the mode of providing a goblet for 
every individual : — we affect superiority over 
the French, and smile disdainfully at some of 
their customs, which certainly are capable of im^ 
provement, but we forget that we have customs 
which call equally loud for reformation — habit 
hides from our eyes, for instance, the filthiness 
of a practice not absolutely confined to the me- 
tropolis, but far more general there than in the 
provinces, I mean that of drinking one and all 
out of the same porter-pot— It is by no means 
pleasant to be second even to the lips of loveli- 
ness whatever gallantry may affect; but to be 
second to tobacco-chewers, and drivellers to 
garlic-eaters, and gluttons with rotten teeth, 

scrophula 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 181 

scrophula, and indigestion, is abominable— a 
Frenchman would rather die with thirst than put 
up with it. 

With regard to fashion, France has long been 
considered as the grand emporium of taste, from 
which other countries have imported folly by the 
wholesale. The ladies are certainly entitled to 
the palm-— of the gentlemen less is to be said. 
In one instance I could not but remark, that in 
dress the French betray a good sense, in which 
their neighbours are completely bankrupts. The 
different classes of society among them, very 
properly, keep their distance from each other 
without aping the plumage of orders to which 
they do not belong. When a female is seen in 
the street it is possible to guess at the genus un- 
der which fortune has arranged her- --whether 
she be a paysanne^ a bourgeoise, or lady of rank 
and fortune. 

Happening to land at Dieppe, on the fete of 
Corpus Christi, we were gratified with the cos- 
tume of the Norman peasantry in all its glory— 
a costume on which fancy has been able to make 
no encroachment for centuries. The coeffurc 
is not less grotesque than it is costly; figure to 
yourself a piece of paste-board machinery, em- 
bracing both sides of the head like a pack-saddle, 
mounting up like an inverted sugar-loaf, widen- 



182 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCF. 

mg as it ascends to the height of 15 inches or 
more— trim the ectees of it all around with the 
finest lace, and embroider the ground, which is 
of blue, or pink paper, with gold and silver 
thread-— and, to the upper extremities, suspend 
lappets of lace four fingers wide, and three quar- 
ters of a yard long, and you will have a tole- 
rable representation of the cap. Others have 
this pasteboard erection drawn up to a taper 
pyramid, embroidered as before described, and 
surmounted by a little canopy like a parasol, 
fringed round with broad lace, and lappeted as 
before, Beneath these pasteboard turrets every 
hair is drawn up tight from the roots, plastered 
with pomatum, and daubed with powder— -this 
head-dress is not unfrequently worth half a wo- 
man's fortune. On their shoulders they carry a 
large arm-holed cloak of printed callico, reach- 
ing thence to their woqden shoes-— what is under 
it heaven knows ! 

But, if the peasantry are inflexible in their ad- 
herence to antient custom— -not so with the higher 
orders ; than these the weather-cock is not more 
fickle— the embroidered field presents scarcely 
more variety— -generally, the fine flowing auburn 
hair with which they are abundantly furnished is 
platted or twisted, and then fastened upon the 
crown of the head with a highly ornamented 
sheli-comb, and decorated besides with golden 

arrows 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 183 

arrows, crescents, and other beautifully elegant 
trinkets, and gives } T ou the expectation of a com- 
pletely finished head-dress ; but the tresses which 
hang upon the forehead are as odiously disposed 
of— -drenched first with some scented oil, and 
smelling detestably, they are then picked out 
into thin and meagre curls, entangling, like the 
links of a chain, in one another, and descend- 
ing; along the side of the face to the chin— instead 
of coming forward and smiling, as we expect, 
through nature's lovely ringlets, they bear the 
exact appearance of having just escaped from 
the hands of the humane society— nor do their 
pale and sallow complexions belie the resem- 
blance. 

The chastity of fashion from hence- downward 
is very conspicuous--- (but, ere I proceed, let it 
be understood, that I speak now of the Rouen- 
ites and the Parisians alone, the former the more 
audacious of the two. In the departments the 
dress of the ladies is, to the full, as unexcep- 
tionable as the dignity of the sex can demand ;) 
the bosom, formed by nature with enchanting 
loveliness to reward the fidelity of tenderness and 
truth, plumped up and padded to a rank exube- 
rance of which nature, in its merriest mood, 
never formed any conception, all exposed to 
view, serves rather to provoke the nausea of dis- 
gust, than to arrest the gaze of admiration. A 

few, 



1S4 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

few, indeed, there are who cast a. perfectly trans- 
parent muslin over their prostituted charms--- 
but there are thousands who brave the rudest and 
most licentious stare without even this salvo to 
outraged modesty ; the rest of the person, were 
it not that an equally transparent drapery suffers 
every mould and every motion to be perfectly de- 
fined, would be shapeless. From the ceinture 
beneath the bosom to the feet, it is as the breeze 
may chance to make it. In the Palais Royale, 
and the stupid copyists of its audacity, the ele- 
gantes are furnished with flesh-coloured opera 
drawers perfectly fitted to the shape ; the petti- 
coat is looped up to the hip with a diamond- 
button, so that, with every motion, the whole 
limb from its insertion downward stands exposed 
view. 

The young men presuming, that the most 
marked opposition to the manners of the antient 
court is republicanism, and that republicanism 
and slovenliness are the same, have totally thrown 
off the Frenchman ; a well-dressed man, unless 
he be a foreigner, is a sort of prodigy in the 
streets of Paris. In vain you look around you 
for the spruce, buckrammed, lace-bedaubed 
Jackanape's coat of the ancien regime,-— troops 
of, apparently, Newmarket-jockies, wrapped 
up in loose great-coats of hunters cloth, a sort 
of semi-breed, betwixt a stable-boy and a qua- 

ker, 



•A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 185 

ker, alone encounter you. Nevertheless, it 
must be granted, that they are improved by the 
metamorphosis— having broken the neck of de- 
spotism-— trampled the crouching vassalage to 
which their fathers were reduced, and seized 
the rank of men. 

They have now begun to think the grinning 
gabble of eternal compliment, which neither 
meant, nor conveyed an idea, is for the most part 
silenced ; and, when time and experience shall 
have taught them how far the pure theories of 
the philosophers are adapted to the infirmities 
and corruptions of man, and how far they are 
not, the whole species, will be benefited by the 
change. 

The licentiousness of dress just noticed, leaves 
but little to be expected with regard to the purity 
of public morals. Previous to the revolution the 
fashionable circles of Paris were not renowned 
for the purity of their virtue — the ladies were 
not paragons — and the convulsions, which (hav- 
ing overwhelmed a new-born limited monarchy) 
terminated in the most fearful anarchy, have not 
rendered their manners more correct and chaste 
— the ancien regime had driven the mine, the 
revolution has sprung it, and overwhelmed both 
the affectation and the reality of virtue in one 
complete ruin. 

It 



186 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 



It is seldom now that affection enters at all 
into the nuptial bargain, or fidelity is expected 
— the ladies, without scruple, avow it to be a 
mere matter of convenience ; and, if the parti- 
cular views with which it is contracted be but 
answered, every thing else is out of the ques- 
tion. Should a female happen to trip before she 
has quitted the parental for the husband's wing, 
she is lost for ever ; but, being once dubbed ma- 
dcone, if she follows the particular predilection 
of her heart, why there is no great harm done. 
Monsieur, assuredly, does the same ; and, by 
a sort of tacit compromise, they contrive to jog 
on together without incommoding each other 
with curtain lectures, and domestic squabbles. 
The reputation of neither of them is tarnished, 
nor will such a conduct, any more than in the fa- 
shionable British world, exclude them from any 
circle or society; and, should the phenomenon 
sometimes appear, in the Parisian hemisphere^ 
that either of them winces, at the partition of the 
other's favours, the tribunals are open, and, till 
the consular government wisely restrained the fa- 
cility of divorce, an expence of five pounds will 
at any time radically cure a domestic torment. 

But, considering the opportunities of amuse- 
ment, to use La Fleur's expression, which the 
gentlemen enjoyed, this was an alternative which 
was, in one case ? almost alone resorted to— the 

expence 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 177 

expence of marrying a lovely girl not to be ob- 
tained by any other mode— keeping her as long 
as passion lasted, and then divorcing her to 
make way for another marriage, was much in- 
ferior to what is not unfrequently lavished upon 
an abandoned mistress— the mournful conse- 
quence of which is, the coteries are thronged 
with repudiated, indignant females, and a sort 
of licenced prostitutes. 

To the fashionable modes of married life, the 
houses of the French gentry, especially their rural 
chateaus, are admirably adapted. Monsieur occu- 
pies one extremity, Madame the other, and neither 
of them presumes to intrude unbidden upon the 
other's privacies, un pen triste ; or with no more 
pleasing companion at hand pour dissiper F ennui, 
a formal message is dispatched, drawn up accord- 
ing to the most correct propriety of etiquette, 
and most humbly soliciting the permission to do 
themselves the honour of waiting the one upon 
the other; and if, at any time, the brusque 
etourdi, forgetting every rule of politeness, hap- 
pens to bounce into my lady's dressing-room, or 
into the sanctum sanctorum, and there stumbles 
upon her cher ami, instead of tumbling his sub- 
stitute out of the window, he begs ten thousand 
pardons for interrupting the tete-a-tete — feels 
infinitely obliged to the gentleman for politely 
taking the trouble of passing a judgment upon 

n the 



1?8 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

the lady's ornaments — takes up his hat and quits 
the premises. 

As might be expected, the disposition of the 
inferior orders has been but little meliorated by 
the revolution ; the perverse and preposterous 
notions of equality with, which the abettors of 
anarchy and despotism combined to din their 
ears, have completely poisoned the antient 
French mildness and urbanity, and their rude- 
ness and incivility are intolerably offensive. 

At Paris and Rouen they have even contracted 
a mischievousness of disposition, which, it is 
but justice to add, I have not elsewhere found; 
does a well-dressed pedestrian, with the aspect 
of a gentleman, encounter one of these Septem- 
brisers beside the kennel, or on a narrow path, 
though filthy as a scavenger, he assumes the firm 
and frontless gait of independence, looks as 
though he would say " 'tis my turn nozc," and 
turns, perhaps, the patron who gives him bread, 
into the dirt. Porters, with their burdens on 
their backs, will rather run foul of the passenger 
than beside him, and injure than pass him harm- 
less by. 

In countries where the peasantry struggled 
hard for the restoration of the antient order of 
tilings, this is by no means the case— a strong 

argument 



A TOUR THROUGH FfcANCE. \79 

argument that the antient order had its good as 
well as its faulty points. Your feelings are not 
shocked there with the savage scowl, and evident 
wish to cut your throat, which the sovereign peo- 
ple of Rouen and Paris bear upon their visages^ 
A stranger, decently garbed, may there assuredly 
reckon upon having one half of the pathway 
conceded to him ; and, if he makes the experi- 
ment of complimenting the man that meets him 
with the touch of his hat, he may depend upon 
it that the compliment will be returned;— even 
here, however, the women and the children 
are rather too unceremonious — have you a mu- 
sical party, or a dance, in your apartment, they 
will not fail to crowd around your window— to 
draw back your blinds, and mingle their remarks 
with yours upon the graces of the belles and the 
execution of the musical performers— nay, the 
latter will even contest the point with you should 
you be disposed to close the jalousies against 
them— are you at table, at cards, or the desk, 
and your servant has any thing to ask, or com- 
municate, the sans calotte stalks, with the most 
perfect ease, into your parlour— the side-cock of 
his fierce military hat over his nose, and his hands 
upon his hips, thees and thous, as though he were 
a follower of George Fox, whoever speaks to 
him ; and, when his business is finished, stalks 
out again, leaving the door to be shut by him 
who is incommoded by the blast. I must, how- 

N 2 ever ■ 



180 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

ever, add, that this uncouth mode of speaking 
is by no means mingled with disrespect — it came 
in with the revolution, and is going out again 
with expiring liberty. There was a time when 
phrenzy was in its paroxism, when it was not only 
necessary to comply with this rude and boorish 
address, but the disuse of it was accounted full 
proof of royalism. 

With all these national and uninviting pecu- 
liarities, it must be confessed, that the French 
are, upon the whole, an amiable people — there 
is an urbanity— a good nature— a readiness to 
oblige which is highly interesting— politeness 
and suavity of manners, in other countries con- 
fined to the elevated ranks of life, here pervade, 
with few exceptions only, every situation, every 
profession— they are mild and gentle— affable 
and easy— as desirous to please as to be pleased. 
I know, that what we call excess of civility, be- 
cause we are rather unaccustomed to it, throws 
a doubtful cast upon their candour— our cun- 
ning trading spirit, which judges every man by 
itself, and suspects the generosity, to which we 
are strangers, to be nothing less than deeper cun- 
ning still, attributes their guiltless honesty to in- 
sincerity, to French politesse— every profession is 
palaver, the mere empty breath of compliment, 
which will expire in Voth and smoke. For my 
part, I must enter my most solemn protest against 

sucli 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 181 

such a construction of their polished civility- 
it is a calumny as groundless as it is injurious and 
unjust. 

A foreigner must be extremely well recom- 
mended in England to gain there those attentions 
which I obtained in France with no recommen- 
dation at all ; and, I scruple not to assert, that 
a Briton, landing in that country, must be double 
dosed with the ignorant and bigotted prejudices 
of his countrymen, who is not impressed with 
ideas of French urbanity very much to their dis- 
advantage. Others again will, perhaps, say— 
" It is their poverty which makes them thus ob- 
sequious, smooth, and fawning." Be it so— 
this is however, one effect of poverty with 
which I was not before acquainted. In En- 
gland it makes a man sulky, churlish, bru- 
tal, and, I confess, I see no reason why it 
should not brutalize a Frenchman ; but, I deny 
that the Frenchmen are so piteously poor as this 
objection supposes ; they have not, it is true, as 
much money to waste upon their vices as the 
English populace unfortunately have— -but are 
they, for this reason, poorer ? A Frenchman's 
temperate mind finds, in the labour of his hands 
an ample resource for all his wants, and lives in 
gaiety, comfort, and content; but an English- 
man's vices consume, and would consume the 
n 3 produce 



182 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

produce of his hands, had he as many as Brya*- 
reus ; and though expending daily more than a 
Frenchman can earn in a week, yet pines away 
his discontented being in squalid wretchedness, 
complaints, and misery! — Judge then, who is 
the poorer man : admitting that a Frenchman 
earns but one shilling per day, while his natural 
memy, as the ministers of satan teach us to call 
him, earns three, yet, when we consider that a 
Frenchman's one shilling will purchase more food 
for himself and his family than the Englishman's 
three, and, above all, taking the Frenchman's 
frugal simplicity on the one hand, and the En- 
glishman's depraved necessities on the other, in- 
to the calculation, we shall not assert too much 
when we say, that ceteris paribus, the Frenchman 
is the richer man :— -it is not money that makes 
me rich-— he only is rich whose wants are few, 
and whose means are commensurate to his wants. 
—I will allow that a Frenchman has vanity ; he 
will tell you what mighty services he has rendered 
you; and how extremely fortunate it was for 
you that he happened to be in the way to lend 
you the assistance which no one else could possi- 
bly render you ; but having thus incensed his 
own self-conceit, he will take you by the hand 
when your own countrymen would turn coldly 
away from you, piously blessing God, that you, 
rather than they, are in the slough of despond ! 



But 



A TOUR THROUGH FRAXCE. 183 

But let us descend to experience, the proper 
test of every doctrine : — I have said that suavity 
of manners pervades all the ranks and gradations 
of society in France. At Dieppe and Rouen I 
experienced it in the most striking manner, with a 
few solitary exceptions only. I have elsewhere 
described our ludicrous landing at the former of 
these places, and if I was dismayed by some cir- 
cumstances which then occurred, amply was I 
compensated in others : from the moment we 
attached ourselves to de la Rue, our persons, our 
carriage, our trunks, were taken under his im- 
mediate protection, and in a mode which it would 
be hopeless to seek for in England ; and what in 
Holland, and in the last mentioned country will 
be considered rather singular, he neither im- 
posed upon us himself, nor would he permit 
others to do it, 

At the custom-house we experienced a deli- 
cacy of treatment equally characteristic :— just 
escaped from the clutches of a set of imps, who 
account rudeness and brutality a necessary accom- 
panyment of their profession ; who fleece you 
without mercy, and treat you as though they 
were bears when they have done : we had here 
no sooner unlocked our trunks, than we were 
requested to lock them again ; not a farthing 
was exacted, and a handsome bow made us into 
the bargain at our departure. 

n 4 Arrrived 



184 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

Arrived at the Bureau des Passeports though 
irritated by ministerial petulance on the one side, 
and ministerial antipathy which could not sheathe 
its teeth, though the sword was sheathed, on the 
other — yet the mildness, the gentleness, with 
which we were treated, completely disposed us 
to pass by and forgive the inconvenience to which 
we were subjected. 

From the moment the definitive treaty was 
signed, all restraint upon the intercourse be- 
twixt France and her opponent was taken off; 
invalids were at full liberty to pass over and 
search for the health in its genial clime which 
they had lost at home; commercial men found 
no difficulty in seeking their former correspond- 
ents, and renewing former connections ; and as 
many as chose to travel for amusement found 
every ancient facility renewed.— France demon- 
strated not only a disposition to sign treaties, but 
to be bonajidc at peace.— On the other side of 
the channel how wide was the difference— there 
the alien bill continued with all the unabating 
rancorous hostility of actual warfare ; to swing 
the door of social intercourse in the teeth of the 
republicans — -many French gentlemen presum- 
ing that the pacific spirit exhibited by their own 
country would be met by a spirit as pacific in ours, 
came over to England as Englishmen went over 
to France ; but while the latter were cordially 

welcomed, 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 185 

welcomed, and received every polite attention 
and assistance in the prosecution of the object of 
their journey, the others were arrested— de- 
tained in durance, or sent home again with great 
expense in their purses and their spirits : remon- 
strance was in vain ; the alien-bill forsooth was 
to continue in force six months after the final ar- 
rangement of the treaty. 

Justly incensed at the retention of a restriction 
now so odious, now so easy to be dispensed 
with, not to say so totally irreconcileable with 
the spirit of peace, the French government fi- 
nally resolved to treat British subjects in France, 
as Frenchmen were treated in Britain ; at least 
such was the account we received at the French 
custom-houses, whether it be accurate or not it 
is not my business to decide. 

At this unfortunate conjuncture I arrived at 
Dieppe ; and presuming that passports were un- 
necessary, had not taken the precaution to trou- 
ble Lord Hawksbury for one, at the expense of 
21. 5s. each, presenting myself at the municipal- 
ity to demand one, as had been the custom, I 
was told, with a shrug of the shoulders, that an 
order to the effect above-mentioned was just re- 
ceived, and for the reasons above detailed ; and 
that the republic was under the necessity of de- 
nying me the civility I solicited, unless I was 

already 



186 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

already furnished with a passport from — 

the French charge d'affaires in London. I was 
of course placed in a very unpleasant dilemma. 
— " But ( continues the municipal officer, ) 
though I have no power to grant Monsieur the 
power to proceed on his journey, I have no or- 
ders to stop him ; he is therefore extremely wel- 
come to go forward, and I dare say no one will 
molest him." Had I been a tinker or a cobler, 
a mechanic of any description whatever, jthe 
case would have been different ; for the prohibi- 
tion just received was accompanied with a dis-* 
pensation to this effect 

Priests are an order of animals of which the 
government did not feel itself at that moment in 
need .: I was accompanied hither by de la Rue,wha 
had attended me to vouch for me that I actually 
was what I professed to be, which it was indis- 
pensible that some responsible resident in the 
town should do : it is true, that this was probably 
nothing more than the formality of office ; but 
I am disposed to think that the Frenchman who 
lands in Britain a total stranger to every one in 
it y may ransack the ports from John-a- Groats 
house to the Lizard, and back again, ere he 
would have found an inn-keeper disposed to un- 
dertake for him what de la Rue proposed un^ 
asked to undertake for me. 

Things 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 187 

Things were yet in a too unsettled state for 
me to presume with confidence my getting 
to my journey's end without molestation. --- 
Every gens cTarmes I knew had a right to ar- 
rest me ; and I dare not say that my feelings 
were most placidly serene while these blue-coated 
gentry were crossing my path ; my only consola- 
tion was, that I had avowed myself to the go^ 
vernment which knew where to find me at any 
moment. There was however, no alternative, 
but to proceed to Rouen where the prefect of 
the department resided, or return to old England 
again;— and here (I humbly beg their pardon 
for the account I have elsewhere given of their 
villainous town, and no less villainous canaille) 
I met again with numberless and most affecting 
civilities— every one was ready to lend his hand 
in extricating me from my embarassments ; but 
the case being a new one, nobody knew how to 
set about it. 

To bring the matter to the shortest possible is- 
sue, I determined to wait upon the prefect my- 
self—in fact, the only eligible mode of proceed- 
ing in similar difficulties :— at the fountain-head 
you presently learn what is to be done, or not 
to be done.— -I stated to him my difficulties, 
" here I am under such and such circumstances" 

and cast myself uponJiis candour " Fray 

xvhat is Monsieur ?"■ — " A. priest" — " Ah ! that 

is 



188 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

is unfortunate — had he been an artist ; had he 
been a mechanic, there would be no difficulty /" — 
" But pray is not Monsieur acquainted with any 
trade, art, or manufactured — " Oh yes, he 
has never indeed professed either trade or manu- 
facture, but he is perfectly acquainted with ma- 
ny? " N' import e, n import e, that is enough; 
let him present himself at the municipality as an 
artist or mechanic ; or, if Monsieur does not 
chuse to take the sin upon his conscience, let Ma- 
dame take it upon hers ; there is no oath to be 
administered. — The French government wishes 
not to cast any restriction upon the pleasures of 
gentlemen who come hither zvith honest views and 
intentions — but considering the influx of foreign- 
ers to this country, many of them of very sus- 
picious characters, there are formalities which 
cannot be dispensed zvith? 

I followed his directions ; and two hours af- 
terwards received my passports made out accord- 
ing to the instructions from the prefect- — for 
which I paid not two pounds five shillings, 
but eight-pence!!! — I will only further add, 
that in every office at which I was required to ap- 
pear, at the museum, at the libraries, at the galle- 
ries of the arts, the treatment I received was uni- 
formly and equally liberal. Will any man tell me, 
that all this was the smoke and vapour of empty 
compliment ? or that poverty thus rendered the 

5 brother 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 189 

brother of Cambaceres indulgent to a foreigner ? 
— No : it was innate benevolence — the wish to 
oblige — every idea of recompence and compen- 
sation was out of sight. Where is the English 
office in which a foreigner will receive attention 
as gratifying ? — 

For a time the cheerfulness, which is a very 
prominent part of the Frenchman's character, is 
amusing ; but, when we see that it is not in the 
power of misfortune to humble him, and silence 
his eternal prattle— that even, in concerns the 
most serious, his characteristic volatility is min- 
gled, we are apt to think lightly of his feelings, 
and despise his levity as much as we admire his 
good-natured wish to please. 

A Frenchman has religion, # and, for a few 
moments in the day, he will present you with a 

picture 



* During the late disastrous conflict, the atheism and irre- 
ligion of the French were convenient bugbears ; the imagi- 
nations of the timorous were sufficiently haunted by them, and 
not a few of our most zealous partizans were hereby hurried 
into the cordial support of a crusade they would otherwise have 
detested ; to say nothing of the pious christian wish to exter- 
minate the unbelievers from the face of the earth, they are not 
even now permitted to return quietly to the u vasty deep," 
but are still impressed into the service as a sort of corjts d& re- 
serve against any future emergency in which it may be conve- 
nient 



190 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

picture of abstraction and intense devotion, 
which, were it not poisoned by his future con- 
duct, 



nient to work up the passions of mankind into fury. — The 
" atheism and irreligion" of the French are like many other as- 
persions which have been cast upon them. 

Practical atheists are every where to be found, and no where 
in greater plenty than among the late champions for social or 
der, religion, (and to consummate the climax of blasphemy) 
God. But speculative atheists, i. e. atheists in principle, are 
as rare in France as in Britain. Deists are innumerable : in 
fact, we may almost say, that all the men of intelligence, all 
the men of learning, are deists ; — so far from being atheists, 
they one and all believe in one God, the first cause of all 
things — in his providential care of his creation — in a future 
state, in which the immortal spirit shall be rewarded or pu- 
nished according to the things done in the body. Of Jesus; 
Christ they have a high, a respectful idea as the first of mo- 
ralists — a man of the most unrivalled virtue; but, they. deny 
the divinity of his mission — the conundrums of Calvinism, 
which are equally the conundrums of popery with regard to 
his person and dignity ; and, if is very evident, that they have 
renounced Christianity because they have never seen it, but as 
tricked out in the meretricious dresses which these equally meek 
and gentle parties have prepared for it— because they are ig- 
norant of it as it is in its own native simplicity, and they will 
renounce it till it is represented to them, not as corrupt and im- 
pious priests have made it, but as its pious founder first consti* 
tuted it. 

While 1 was at Paris, a deputation from those gentlemen 
who have arrogated to themselves the tide " Evangelical 
preachers" was also there, soliciting, from the first consul, the 

permission 
2 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 191 

duct, would be superlatively edifying. Totally 
unacquainted with the disgusting yell— the ta- 
bernacle 



permission to send missionaries for the propagation of their 
system in France. They may as well drop the scheme— for, 
not to say they have little chance of rising into competition 
with the French preachers, whose powers in the pulpit are of 
the highest order, their scheme of divinity is too nearly allied 
to the divinity of popery to be more digestible than the one 
which hath been " cast forth." 

" You tell me, says one of them, reasoning with him upon 
the truth of Christianity, " you tell me that there is one God-- 
that this God is infinitely perfect in all his attributes—the most 
amiable of beings — wise, and just, and good. Presently 
you tell me, that this infinitely amiable being is 'foaming with 
rage and resentment against the human race--that we are one 
and all born under his curse and indignation, and liable to eter- 
nal torments in hell because Adam, some thousand years before 
the major part of us were in being, had trespassed in one little 
point against his commands. Next, you tell me, that the 
only begotten and well-beloved son of this infinitely kind and 
tender father comes forward, and, under circumstances of the 
most atrocious cruelty, lays down his life to appease the fury 
ef God, and, that the fury of this merciful, kind, and com- 
passionate being against worms who had never offended him — 
who could never have offended him — was by no other means to 
he allayed; and, finally you tell me, that this son is his own 
father— that this gentle, this furious, this raging, this interced- 
ing Being, are one and the same, offering up himself to him- 
self, by his own meekness, to appease his own rage, and do 
away his own malediction." 

Doctrine* 



192 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

bernacle see-saw— the eternal Amen of our mo- 
dern nexv lights ; if he sets decency at defiance 

all 



Doctrines like these are too injurious to the moral attributes 
of God ; the system is too complex, too contradictory for the 
digestion of a Frenchman. It is in vain to preach it to him 
till you can enforce it as the apostles did their sermons and ex- 
hortations : the attempt to reason upon the subject but serves 
to confirm him in his apostacy. He that would preach Chris- 
tianity in France with the smallest prospect of success, must 
come forward with the gospel in his hand — not with the abstruse 
discussions of Rabbinical learning — not with the quarrels be- 
twixt the Gentile converts, and the Jews and Judaising Chris- 
tians — not with Pharisaical allegory, cabbalistical refinement, 
and Grecian philosophy — but with the truth as it is in Jesus, 
simple, easy, and intelligible. When I assured them that there 
were thousands of Christians who believed no more of this 
gross, confounding series of enigmas than themselves, and ex- 
plained the general outline of this and the other system, found- 
ed upon the untortured sense of the sacred oracles, they can- 
didly confessed that there was little here to outrage the com- 
mon sense of mankind, and that the subject merited attention. 

It is true these objections to the Trinitarian hypothesis no 
more prove it to be untrue, than the supercilious proud con- 
tempt of the Athenians proves the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion to be untrue; but it proves that it is an hypothesis which 
confounds equally the foolish and the wise; those that are, and 
those that are not, and consequently comes not up to the pre- 
dictions of antient prophecy, which tell us that the doctrines 
of the gospel should be so plain, that he who runs may read 
them, and the way-faring simpleton be incapable of erring in 
them ; and, when it is recollected, that the doctrine in ques- 
tion is no where explicitly revealed but in the institutes of Cal- 
vin 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* 193 

all the rest of the day during his devotions, no-~ 
thing can be more serious — nothing more digni- 
fied than his demeanour; the world and all its 
cares seem to be forgotten ; he enters upon his 
duty, and he goes through it with all his heart, 
with all his mind, and with all his might ; a thou- 
sand spectators may be crowding round him, 
but his eyes are immoveably fixed upon his cru- 
cifix—his lips move — his hands are clasped upon 
his breast, and his eye beams with faith and 
hope. With all this, his religion is like him- 
self—a jumble of inconsistency, and he takes it 
up, or lays it down, as may suit him best ; for 
a while it sticks to him like his cloak, and he 
wears it with all imaginable decency, and, when 



vin, that it rests upon texts which the best critics, Trinitarian 
and anti-Trinitarian, have pronounced to be forgeries, or is the 
far-fetched conclusion from premises as much intended to de- 
monstrate the system of Copernicus as the system of Calvin, 
and consequently must be unessential to salvation, it merits the sober, 
serious consideration of the gentlemen above alluded to, whe- 
ther it be better to make doctrines of this compaction a sine qua 
non, at the expence of confirming 30,000,000 of people in 
error and infidelity, which will be the inevitable conse- 
quence, or to leave all such quibbles where the blessed Jesus 
left them (if, indeed, he knew any thing about the subject, 
which does not appear from his sermons or conversations), and, 
by inculcating doctrines simple as those which he taught, bring 
his straying sheep once more within the Christian pale, and into 
the path of salvation. 

o it 



194 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

it becomes inconvenient to him, he casts it aside. 
In the morning he repairs to the oratory, and, 
like St. Paul, it seems questionable whether he 
be in the body or out of the body. In the even- 
ing he gives it a cast, as the postilion does his 
jack-boots, and jigs it and all his cares away to- 
gether. 

There is a certain round of formalities ; a 
set form of words, the repetition of which he 
has been taught to consider religion— for popery 
has nothing to do with principle ; it is not a re- 
ligion of principle— of those internal feelings on 
which protestants insist so much, which are in- 
tended to controul and govern the heart — he 
has never been taught to form any conception, 
and would shrug up his shoulders were you to tell 
him, that as long as the heart is pure, and the 
life correct, he may dispense with his ave-marias. 
These, and similar absurdities, he has been 
accustomed to consider the sum and substance 
of Christianity. This is the price at which hea- 
ven is to be purchased ; and, as long as the sti- 
pulated round of formality is gone through, 
heaven has nothing more to demand iJhe price 
is paid, and he is at liberty to enjoy himself to 
the uttermost ; accordingly should the little plans 
of amusement, which constitute the grand bu- 
siness of a Frenchman's life, interfere with the 

stated 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 195 

Stated services of the Sunday, he very easily gets 
the better of the difficulty. Has he some party 
of pleasure, or a dance at his house in the even- 
ing, which requires the afternoon for previous 
preparation, he rises with the morning-— hies 
him to the shrine of his patron saint— gives him 
a double portion of prostration, bowing, and 
crossing— gets through his morning and evening 
service before breakfast, and, thus having the 
start of his duty, returns home with clean hands, 
and a clear conscience, to set his saloon and his 
fiddle in order. * 

To 



* I know few things which grate with more discordance 
upon my feelings than a fiddle on a Sunday; but, I will not 
say, for this reason, that a Frenchman who closes his sabbath 
with a dance is guilty of greater criminality than some others 
who do not. I have been taught, from my infancy, to consi- 
der the sabbath a day of sacred rest, and solemn recollection; 
a Frenchman has been taught no such thing — nay, his conduct 
has been sanctioned by the source from which all hierarchical 
authority has been derived ; and, of course, while it was 
impossible for him to draw his notions of Christianity but from 
this corrupted fountain, he is not to be blamed if that conduct 
be incorrect. Far be from me to vindicate a practice which I 
abhor; but, I must insist upon it, that, of two evils, the 
Frenchman takes the least. There is no moral turpitude in a 
dance, and it has an unquestionable tendency to brace the 
nerves, to exhilirate the spirits, arid consequently to invigorate 
us for the discharge of the duties of life; accordingly, the 
Frenchman cheers himself through all the labours of the week 
with the expectation of the joyous hours which will succeed 
o 2 its 



196 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

To a thinking mind, what has been said of a 
Frenchman's religion, is humiliating. Good 
God ! that a nation which ranks high among 
the nations of the earth should thus degrade 
itself by thinking, for a moment, that the Eter- 
nal, the source of all perfection, can be conci- 
liated by such a paltry compromise as this— that 
the infinite mind can be pleased with the contor- 
sions of a worm— that bliss eternal, at his own 
right-hand, is to be purchased by services in 
which that precious spark of his own spirit in- 
fused into us, to become the pilot and the guide 
to dignity of sentiment and action, has no part. 
It is not to be wondered at, that philosophic; 
minds were incapable of receiving all this mum- 
mery for religious duty ; and, that in a country 
where men were forbidden to probe their creed, 



its close : on the other hand, the Englishman growls all the 
day long; on the Sunday morning he saunters at his door, his 
stockings about his heels, his beard like that of a satyr, a com- 
plete picture of vice ; — at noon he adjourns to the alehouse, 
riots in intemperance till he has wasted two-thirds of the earn- 
ings of the week ; — at midnight he reels home, pennyless, 
senseless, the most disgusting brute in the creation of God. 
While the Frenchman wakes with the lark, joyous as inno- 
cence, John Ball, with aching head, and sickness at his heart, 
his steps still tottering, and his hand trembling, is necessitated 
to hie him to the gin-shop, to brace his shattered nerves, and 
mortgage the earnings of the week ere he can commence his 
labours. 

and 






A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 197 

and to attest its evidences, they spurned at such 
a system as this. 

We do wrong when we accuse the French re- 
volutionists of having overturned the altars of 
Christianity in the late tremendous struggle- no ; 
they have not overturned Christianity; for, as a 
people, it is many a century since Christianity 
dared to shew its head amongst them. 

The libellous profanation of that sacred system 
they have over-set— turned " our dear brethren 
in the Lord Jeoiis" adrift, and scattered the un- 
blushing supporters of it ; and they have done 
well ; the only matter of wonder is, that the pa- 
tience of the Eternal endured so long, and that 
his thunder-bolts did not sooner hurl to perdition 
both the erection and the craft. It cannot fail of 
recurring to the mind when it ponders these 
events ; and they furnish a wholesome lesson to 
every priesthood under heaven— that the French 
hierarchy has reaped the just wages of its own 
shameful and unblushing impositions upon the 
credulity of a simple, honest, people ! — Its sor- 
rows were the just consequence of its own ini- 
quity !— The violent dealings of the craft came 
down upon its own head ! Nothing can be more 
base, nothing more abominable, than the system 
of arrogant usurpation planned and pursued by 
9 3 then* 



198 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

them from generation to generation ! — To con- 
solidate their empire over the abject, depraved, 
dispirited multitude — they blushed at nothing — 
they stuck at nothing ! 

It was the boast of one of the first of saints, 
that having no dominion over the church, the 
summit of his ambition was to be the Servant of 
the Flock and the Helper of its Joy ; not so with 
the foil ozvers of the apostles, they had a very dif- 
ferent end in view : — instead of becoming ser- 
vants of the flock, they must be its despotic mas- 
ters — rule with absolute sway — and command 
where it was their duty to entreat, to advise, to 
comfort, to assist ; — but, cunning as the serpent, 
they too well knew that this could never be ac- 
complished till the public mind were stripped of 
its independence — nor the mind be stripped of its 
independence till the sceptre was at their com- 
mand ; and, unfortunately for the people, the 
throne of France has seldom failed of being oc- 
cupied by weak and sombre bigots — the slaves 
of superstition to day, and of profligacy to-mor- 
row ! Materials these, as favourable for working 
upon as the priesthood could possibly desire! 
Accordingly we find them pampering their vices ; 
now and then liquidating the account with their 
consciences by silly austerity, and servile obse- 
quiousness to the ghostly empirics who buzzed 

; around 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 199 

around them, and aggrandized themselves at the 
expence of the monarch's power, and the peo- 
ple's purse : — did gratitude for absolution from 
the penalty of some atrocious crime, melt the 
heart, and dispose him to reward with munifi- 
cence the pardon-mongers who had washed 
his guilty soul, and robed it anew in innocence, 
they failed not to improve the tempting moment 
— they extolled his piety — they dubbed him with 
titles fulsome and surfeiting to every one but 
himself — they intoxicated his feeble faculties 
with the promise of an apotheosis among the 
saints : — but did he presume to run restive, and 
revolt at their enormous cupidity — they aban- 
doned him to despair — they fulminated hell-fire 
and damnation at his head, and surrendered him 
without bail or mainprise to the devil and his 
angels ! and, while thawed and lost in the soft 
dreams of glory, honour, and immortality, or 
quaking with terror and consternation, they 
wrested the emblem of authority from his ener- 
vated hand, and erected themselves into the ar- 
biters of the empire's fate ! 

Thus, vested with the power to hurt and to de- 
stroy, their subsequent conduct failed not to 
tally exactly with the means by which they had 
mounted to authority — studying to degrade the 
man, as the most effectual mode of consolidating 
their empire over him; nothing was too prepos-* 
o 4 terous 



200 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, 

terous for them to broach, and to cram down the 
throats of the suffering multitude ;-. — in the broad 
face of day it was taught that " it had nothing to 
do zvith the lazv but to obey it." — Reflection was 
constituted a crime — the child of reason no longer 
dared avow his utter incapacity to believe contra-? 
dictions— if his soul shrunk back from absurdity, 
and deemed it impossible to be derived from 
God, he was compelled to dungeon his repug- 
nance in his own bosom, or brave the assassin's 
dagger, or the flames of martyrdom ! 

France became for ages as might be expected, 
the miserable theatre of bloodshed; complete 
success could not crown such measures, but after 
many a sharp and bloody conflict. The murders 
committed by them upon those who could not 
quench the spark divine, were numberless be- 
yond belief! — Witness the war of the Camisars; 
the war of the League ; the massacre of St. Barr 
tholomew, to say nothing of private assassina- 
tions, and public burnings, now forgotten on 
earth, but registered w in heaven : — alas ! finding 
at length that there was no redress — that the 
throne to which they preferred their heart-rend- 
ing complaint, not only remained obstinately deaf 
to their cries, but an abettor of the crimes they 
deplored— the miserable herd sunk down into 
despair, or sought in giddiness and gaiety (hence 
perhaps the national character) a refuge from 

thought. 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 201 

thought, more baneful to them than the pesti- 
lence ! 

But there is a point beyond which human en- 
durance cannot go :— the ecclesiastical Jehus 
drove on with that confident and unpitying speed, 
that at length the Jades became tired-— even fol- 
ly and superstition could swallow nQ longer ; dis- 
gust, it may almost be said, nauseated every 
stomach, and the idea of religion became detest- 
able !— in cases where their wishes had been 
crowned with success, man was rendered a mere 
animal, stripped of every thing superior to in- 
stinct ; but, where reflection could not be stifled, 
he brooded in silence over his hapless lot, con- 
tracted the scowl, and, perhaps, the dark de- 
signing spirit of a slave, and waited upon the 
thorns of impatience the envied moment, when 
some favourable contingence should enable him 
to break his manacles upon the head of his op- 
pressor, and dash the bowl of imposition in the 
the teeth of him who had drenched him with it ! 

At length the moment came, and fearful was 
the day of retribution ! ---incapacity, combined 
with profligate extravagance overwhelmed the 
throne !■ — Despotism fell with an horrible crash, 
and with it fell the Lucifers which had so long 
been scorching the earth — then it was, that all 
their crimes came into remembrance — the smoul- 
dering 
2 



202 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

dering flame burst forth, and its fury was fierce 
in proportion to the length and severity of the 
oppression beneath which it had been confined ! 

In Protestant departments, where the tender- 
mercies of these feeders of the flock had made the 
wildest havock — its rage was horrible and undis- 
tinguishable ! — words are unequal to the task of 
describing, in appropriate colours, the atrocities 
which had here been perpetrated ; and language 
is poor, when it would paint the aweful, the 
dreadful retaliation, with which they were re- 
quited ! — Foaming with rage now unbridled, the 
bereaved father rushed into the midst of the in- 
carcerated priests, and demanded his son — the 
son demanded his father from those who had 
driven him into exile — who had confiscated his 
patrimony — who had chained him to the oar — 
who had constrained him to wear away his mi- 
serable days unseen, unheard, unpitied, in the 
mournful silence, in the darkness, and despair 
of a dungeon! — Then it was, that the frantic 
widow looking back on joys, for ever, ever gone, 
demanded the husband of her bosom, the father 
of her children, the comfort of her days — torn 
from his family in the prime of beauty, in the 
manly vigour of his youth, and doomed to an 
abode where the light of heaven never shines, 
where hope never dawns, where the soothing ac- 
cents of commiseration's blest balm to the wounds 

ed 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 203 

ed mind never fall upon the listening ear — never 
arrest the falling tear — never hush the anguished 
sigh : — then it was that despair, turning once 
more her heavy glance upon scenes from which 
she had hitherto flown aghast, her spreading hands 
beside her eyes to hide them from the hateful 
view, and, maddening at the sight, darted like 
a fury into the midst of the murderous fray- 
reproached the weary assassin with cowardice 
and effeminacy, and urged him on to fresh deeds 
of blood f 

Events like these cannot be too much de- 
plored : — but while the shuddering heart bewails 
and laments them, it cannot but confess that 
they are, that they must be the inevitable con- 
sequence of the process, so long carried on ! — 
May those who have escaped, take warning 
from those who fell ; and may their own mourn- 
ful fate teach others who sustain a similar rank in 
society, to beware how they tread in their foot- 
steps, and provoke a similar catastrophe! 

It is not, it cannot be, the province of a priest, 
to impose upon the credulity — to degrade — abuse 
the minds of those who are committed to his 
care ; — it is not, it cannot be, his business to 
build up the cause of a particular Junto, at the 
expense of every thing which is dignifying, which 
is valuable to man; and to support the frontless 

decrees 



204 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

decrees of synods and councils of always weak, 
generally of wicked men, at the expense of the 
New Testament : instead of forbidding men to 
" mark, learn, and imvardly digest,'" for them- 
selves, and turning them over to satan because 
they strive to avoid and escape him, let them 
assist the spirit of investigation; let them cherish a 
superlatively sacred veneration for the oracles of 
everlasting truth, and pursue that only which is 
founded upon the apostles and prophets, and 
more especially upon Jesus Christ, the chief cor- 
ner-stone of the church, and they need not be 
terrified whatever political convulsions shake the 
pillars of the state : — they once enforced the ser- 
vile homage of the flock, and joined the grand 
conspiracy of despotism against it, till they had 
alienated its affections from the altar and the 
throne — by this means they would win its grati- 
tude, esteem, and love ; and while servility turns 
upon the tyranny which had trampled it in the 
dust, and repays with vengeance every act of 
oppression, the memory of the honest endeavour 
to guide the erring into the way of truth, and 
confirm them in the path which leads to everlast- 
ing joy, would form a rampart around them 
against which the gates of hell could not prevail ! 

I cannot drop this interesting subject without 
remarking, that there is another point of view, 

no. 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 205 

jio less instructive, in which the conduct of the 
Gallic hierarchy demands attention. 

In the protestant departments, priest-craft 
succeeded so far alone as to repress resistance, 
not to subdue resentment. — In others, where 
its success had been more complete, (i.e.) where 
the independence of the mind had been complete- 
ly eradicated — with it was eradicated too every 
spark of generous principle ; devotion to the craft, 
and that which renders a man amiable, a good 
citizen, a good neighbour, cannot exist together : 
— rites and ceremonies, and all the vain parade 
of external devotion, the traffic in which it 
deals, will never humanize a savage — never 
subdue an unruly passion — never rein the rugged 
propensities of the heart, nor bring them lowly 
and submissive to the feet of the meek, the gen- 
tle, the forgiving, Jesus ! — Tearing the charter 
of their salvation from the multitude, educating 
it in blind submission to the church, i. e. to 
itself; and inspiring the hood-winked multi- 
tude with horror and aversion to every thing but 
the mummery, which had been substituted in the 
place of religion — when the explosion burst, and 
the yoke of bondage broke, what was there to 
restrain the blackest and most infuriated passions 
of a depraved, abandoned, heart ? The impe- 
tuous rabble knew nothing of patience, of for- 
giveness, of pity, of moderation, the carnal le- 
galities 



206 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

gaUties of the christian life, as indispensible 
conditions of acceptance with God — they had 
been punctual in their Ave-Marias, crossings, 
bowings, penances, fastings, oblations, &c. 
and most cordially hated all that chanced to dis- 
sent from them ; and knew not that any thing 
more than this was necessary to salvation ! 

No sooner then was the opportunity presented, 
than all the uncorrected obliquities of the heart 
blazed forth, and every restraint was humbled 
before it ; a deluge of the most disgusting licen- 
tiousness rushed in upon the land — characters the 
most atrocious were the most honoured; not 
only interred where the ashes of virtue were 
wont to rest, but even adored as deities, and, to 
crown the whole, premiums were assigned to 
vice ! 

In this delirium of guilt, the causes of this in- 
calculable calamity could not escape — the mourn- 
ful effects of that poisonous system which placed 
virtue in a secondary rank, to be mentioned 
sometimes, though seldom, in the fag-end of a 
sermon, extended to the abettors of it, and 
ingulphed them in the common ruin — from the 
injured protestants, and from the abused, de- 
graded papists, they received equal indulgence : 
— what a lesson to those who pursue a similar 
line of conduct in other churches! — had they 

been 



A. TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 207 

been content to follow the fishermen of Galilee — 
to win the affections of the people by enlarging 
their understandings, by acquainting them with 
the constitution of the gospel — sowing its virtues 
in the heart, and cherishing every approach to 
the mild, the humane, the charitable, the ca- 
tholic spirit of the Redeemer — had they been as 
anxious to impress them with the hatred of vice 
as with the hatred of heresy — as ambitious to 
make them christians as to make them catholics 
- — and given proof of their sincerity by walking 
according to the gospel, in meekness, in humility, 
in charity, in a word, in the virtues of Jesus 
Christ, revolution might have rolled its mighty 
billows around them ; shaken the throne to its 
foundation, and involved the whole land in one 
vast confusion — but they would have been safe ! 

History has not furnished us with a solitary 
example since the establishment of Christianity 
of the faithful shepherd, who (renouncing poli- 
tics and worldly ambition, and confining himself 
to the duties of his station) has in the hour of 
extremity been abandoned by his flock, much 
less cruelly persecuted by it. Hierarchies con- 
structed as engines of popular subjugation, have 
many a time reaped the just reward of their in- 
sidious servility in the fury of the enraged mul- 
titude ; but never have the evangelists indeed 
been thus requited by those among whom they 

have 
5 



208 A TOUR THROUGH FRANC*. 

have divided the bread of life : — look at the 
virtuous struggles of the Waldenses, the Hugo- 
nots, and others upon the continent — look at 
the persecutions at home — when did the people 
turn like hungry wolves upon those followers of 
Jesus, who aspired alone to instruct the igno- 
rant, to confirm the wavering, to reclaim the 
vicious, to edify and build up the saints in the 
practice of those virtues which the last Judge will 
demand, and heaven will reward — persecuted 
and oppressed by the hirelings who have clam- 
bered over the zcall, to prey upon, not to feed 
the flock, they have received them to their bo- 
soms — they have concealed them in their cot- 
tages — they have fed and cherished them — in 
prison they have cheered the bitter hours of 
captivity — when, standing like their beloved 
Master before an iniquitous tribunal, they have 
soothed the smart of taunting persecution with 
the affectionate gaze of sympathy — they have 
bathed every stripe with their tears, and, at the 
stake, they have wafted the departing spirit on 
their sighs to its great reward : — when no longer 
able to testify their warm affection by overt acts, 
they have cherished the memory of their glorified 
Shepherd with more than filial love — they have 
engraven his precepts upon their hearts — they 
have handed them down to their children, and 
taught the infant tongue to lisp the venerable 
name — to dwell upon his faithfulness, his sor- 
row^ 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 209 

rows, and his death, and to catch the divine en- 
thusiasm of virtue from his pattern — the avidity 
of knowledge from his exhortations — the stead- 
fastness of martyrdom from his glorious exit. — 
Oh, how enviable is fame like this ! to live in 
the affectionate remembrance of those who have 
been guided by him into the paths of everlasting 
truth ; to be held up as a pattern to succeeding 
generations ; to become a beacon to the yet un- 
born in their journey towards the skies — what are 
mitres, what are empires, compared with this ? 

It is but just to add, that though the catholic 
clergy were in general such as we have above 
described them, cunning, ambitious, intolerant, 
yet, there were also among them glorious excep- 
tions to the rule ; men who, disdaining as far as 
possible the shackles of a wicked system of 
church-government, by which they were bound, 
became ornaments to their profession, and dis- 
charged its appropriate duties with dignity and 
diligence; and the observations above made 
were strikingly exemplified in them — their affec- 
tionate flocks, as they shrank back with horror 
from the atrocities which others committed, so 
did they requite to the uttermost, the faithful 
labours of those who had watched over them — they 
sheltered, nourished, and consoled them, till 
their personal safety could no longer be assured, 
p and 



210 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

and then assisted them at the peril of their own 
lives in seeking safety elsewhere. — Men of this 
description were, however, few. 

The French, like other established churches, 
was not unfrequently most shamefully prosti- 
tuted, and totally regardless of the purpose of 
its primitive institution, it was alone contem- 
plated as a handsome provision for younger sons, 
and all those who could not be better disposed of. 
— Talents, virtue, and inclination, were quite 
out of the question : hence, nature outraged in 
more respects than fr one, sought to indemnify it- 
self in others — till the whole order became con- 
temptible and odious, and priesthood and Chris- 
tianity were turned out together. 

The agriculture of France seems to be quite 
upon a par with that of England in parts simi- 
larly situated ; I mean equally poor. In the 
one you may notice as many traces of improve- 
ment, as in the other; i. e. none at all. The 
speculative farmers have been equally successful 
on both sides of the channel ; they have wasted 
their reflections, their experiments, and their 
improvements upon the desert air : the mere 
cultivator of the soil is no where a ruminating 
animal ; to him nature seems to have given the 
faculty of pacing on in his father's traces alone, 

mingled 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 211 

mingled at the same time with a most copious 
share of tenacious bigotry, which utterly antici- 
pates every idea of adopting a custom or a prac- 
tice, which has not been sanctioned by at least one 
thousand years 1 usage in the family ; and should the 
prodigy sometimes arise on their hemisphere, 
perhaps by accidentally crossing the breed, and 
one of these bondsmen of custom and antiquity 
be seen to ponder his ways ; to reflect upon the 
nature and composition of the soil ; the effect of 
this and the other mode of culture ; the pecu- 
liarity of the season, and various other circum- 
stances which call for judgment as well as rule, 
and dare to aberrate from the routine in which 
his fathers and grandfathers jogged on, because 
common sense tells him that accepted practices 
are faulty, that established opinions are ques- 
tionable ; and experience convinces him that 
both the one and the other may be improved, 
not even a religious zealot can exult more in the 
extinction of light and knowledge, than the 
whole fraternity will exult in the disappoint- 
ment which must sometimes attend him ; the tem- 
pest which destroys his harvest will be hailed with 
a malignant joy; the straying flocks and herds 
of the mountain will be aided rather than con- 
trouled in their trespasses upon the hope of the 
year, 

p 2 These 



G12 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

These censures are severe : cits who have 
formed their notion of rural life and rural sim- 
plicity from the sage, sentimental productions of 
Leadenhall-street, will turn away indignant from 
such mysanthropy : be it so — till they have served 
an apprenticeship of experience with these harm- 
less " children of earth* after which we will ba- 
lance the account: — in fact, what is above said, 
is the recompence which every one who sets 
about improving the rural ceconomy of his coun- 
try, must expect: glowing with patriotic ardour, 
many a country gentleman determines to improve 
his superfluous fortune for the good of society, 
and to make those experiments in Georgical 
philosophy, which the poverty of the surround- 
ing peasantry forbids them to make ; he reckons 
upon their good wishes ; he calculates upon their 
aid, and takes it for granted that they will wait 
the result with patient gratitude, and be guided in 
their future proceedings by the knowledge which 
he has purchased for them : — no— they one and 
all combine against him; they obstinately con- 
sider him an interloper, intruding himself un- 
asked into a province which belongs exclusive- 
ly to them : no eloquence shall persuade them 
to believe that another can possess the genero- 
sity which does not belong to them; that he can 
have any object in view superior to that of ascer- 
taining the profits, the trade, of which they above 

all 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 213 

all things wish the world to remain ignorant. 
With minds such as these, agricultural patriotism 
may struggle, but success is hopeless; and hence 
it is that the culture of the soil remains at such 
an humble ebb. It must however be confessed, 
that the French peasant has an infinitely more 
plausible excuse to plead for his ignorance and 
incapacity, than the English husbandman.— If 
the latter by superior culture produces a supe- 
rior crop, the benefit (ecclesiastical exaction 
excepted) is all his own — till the revolution did 
away the monstrous absurdity, an abundant har- 
vest was in France a misfortune, rather than a 
blessing. The miserable farmer had not only 
the vexatious, the irritating view before him, of 
two -thirds of his crop swept away according to 
regular process by the myrmidons of the court 
and the church, but he had the further grievance 
of being additionally taxed in exact proportion to 
the remainder. Happily this abominable system 
is rooted out of the earth ; and it rests with him- 
self now to rival in comfort and prosperity the 
farmer who ploughs and sows the British furrow : 
— nay, I am not sure that he may not surpass 
him. 

There are certainly few countries for which 

nature has done so much, as for this country 

" 710X0 expunged from the map of Europe f the 

climate is benignant as man could wish ; he nei- 

p 3 ther 



214 A TOUR THROUGH FFANCE. 

ther sows, nor reaps in that st-*t v unceasing 
anxiety, which ploughs the countenance, and 
harrows the feelings of the Englishman ; he is 
utterly estranged to that continual vicissitude of 
shunshine, rain, and tempest, which compel us 
to carry on our various operations under circum- 
stances superlatively disadvantageous. — One 
thing alone excites the Frenchman's apprehen- 
sions, viz. a too cloudless sky : — unshadowed by 
a cloud for successive months, the sun frequently 
scorches up the blade — the grass withers, and 
the russet mantle of the latest autumn enwraps 
the months of summer : with this inconvenience 
alone, a very serious one unquestionably, all 
the business of the farm goes forward with the 
most perfect order and regularity ; soon as his 
crops are ripe, the farmer puts in the sickle ; if 
the aspect of the heavens is unpromising to day, 
he puts off the reapers till to-morrow, and has 
rarely to wait till the third day ere he brings them 
home; threshes them at once, (such is the state 
of the atmosphere) winnows and deposits them 
in his granary. 

It is worth remarking, that within a few years 
past there have been at least three patents taken 
out in England for the construction of engines 
wherewith to separate the corn from the chaff, 
the grand principle of which is briefly this : — 
four or more fanes fixed to an axle, are set 

whirling 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 215 

whirling in a cylindrical chest by means of a 
winch, wheel, and pinion ; by its centrifugal 
force, this motion forces a strong blast of wind 
through an opening prepared for that purpose — 
across which the corn falling is presently detached 
from the chaff. These machines are seen in 
every farm-yard, and were, many of them, there 
before the grandfathers of the patentees were in 
being. 

The soil of France is generally as favourable to 
good husbandry as the climate : with few excep- 
tions only it consists of a fine friable mould, 
(sometimes sandy), resting upon a substratum 
of chalk or other calcareous substance highly con- 
ducive to vegetation, and particularly adapted 
to corn— naturally it must have been abundantly 
productive • but there are few spots in which it 
is not evidently exhausted by injudicious culture. 
On the road side in Normandy and Picardy 
stand rows of apple-trees, many of which are 
capable of producing from 200 to 250 gallons of 
cyder each, an ample proof of the native vigour 
of the soil. The greatest difficulties the husband- 
man has to struggle with are his own ignorance, 
and the national mode of life. 

A Frenchman has but few, and those very 

confined, ideas of the various modes by which 

an impoverished soil is to be recruited; he prates 

p4 a great 



216 A TOUR THROUGH FRAXCE. 

a great deal about hot soils and cold soils, hot 
manures and cold manures, but I could never 
perceive that he attempted reducing his notions 
to practice. In the spring and autumn he scrapes 
together the dung that putrifies around his cabin, 
and lays it promiscuously, and without discrimi- 
nation, upon his corn lands ; and here his philo- 
sophy terminates. 

Sometimes indeed he folds his sheep upon his 
fallows, but there are few instances in which it is 
possible to carry this system to any great extent; 
for not to mention that the sheep are few, the 
multitudes of wolves which prowl abroad at night 
must render it extremely dangerous for the flocks 
to remain in the field after the evening : beyond 
this, he seems to have no conception of any ma- 
nure, or any process of virtue to encrease his 
crop : lime I have seen scattered on the ground ; 
marl is seldom or never found ; in various parts 
of the republic there are immense strata of fossil 
shells, but they have never yet been employed in 
agriculture. At an ameliorating crop, or a crop 
to be ploughed in preparatory to another, he 
would smile as the climax of absurdity ; the ne- 
cessary consequence of all this is, that the land 
must inevitably proceed in a regular course of de- 
tereoration ; for as the French use little animal 
food but poultry, large stocks of cattle would 
be cumbersome and useless, (under the ancient 

regime 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. Q1J 

regime they were a grievance constituting one of 
the data on which the taxes of the family were 
calculated) and of course manure must be scarce, 
and till they acquire a taste for roast-beef as well 
as for ragouts, the soil must keep on in a retro- 
grade procession from bad to worse, till all its 
energies be exhausted. 

It has often been matter of wonder how the 
land of India, far from fertile in itself, could 
possibly maintain the immense multitudes which 
actually drew their subsistence from it ; but, if 
we look at the immense nocks and herds which it 
also maintained, the difficulty will be presently 
accounted for : — without cattle, there can be 
comparatively little manure ; and with little ma- 
nure to recruit the impoverished soil, the crops 
will be scanty and degenerate from year to year, 
till they are no longer worth gathering. Hence 
scientific men, who reckon upon large returns of 
corn, begin with enlarging their live-stock; — na- 
ture moves round in a circle — encrease of cattle 
enables us to encrease our crops of every descrip- 
tion, and encreasing crops furnish us with the 
means of encreasing our cattle; but without 
commencing the series with the increase of cattle, 
the increase of crop is hopeless ; and hence, as 
before hinted, till the national mode of life be 
exchanged to one more similar to that adopted 
in England, in other words, till there be a 

greater 



218 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

greater demand for shamble-meat than for poul- 
try, the agriculture of France cannot be ex- 
pected to advance much. 

It may appear singular, but I have not the 
smallest doubt upon the subject, that whole de- 
partments in France could not furnish Smithfield 
with its accustomed supply for three months : no 
where but in the meadows about Liseux, in Nor- 
mandy, where they are fattened for the Paris 
market, do we perceive what may be considered 
an adequate proportion of cattle, and these are 
collected together from Mayenne, Anjou, and 
parts yet more remote, perhaps, from a semi- 
circle of 100 miles radius ;— and here, I may 
add, I saw the only fine cattle which I met with 
on the continent. 

In England every county has a breed peculiar 
to itself of various excellence : in France I have 
noticed two varieties alone— what we commonly 
call the Norman breed, and which is so much 
esteemed, is but a degenerated race brought 
originally from Anjou ; though excellent for 
the dairy, totally destitute of every pretension to 
beauty and symmetry: not so with the herds 
about Liseux ; there you will frequently meet 
with bullocks against which fastidiousness shall 
have nothing to except ; and cows which, while 
beautiful as prize-cattle, are yet equally valuable 
5 to 






A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 21<) 

to the dairy-maid— circumstances rather rare in 
England. A prime cow, in full milk, will sell 
here from 41. 10s. to 61.— a pair of fat oxen 
for 161. 

But, if the French peasant has but few cattle 
to consume his straw, and form manure for his 
crops, it must be allowed that he makes the 
greatest advantage of those which actually be- 
long to him. The soiling system, originally en- 
forced by necessity, is now universally adopted 
through all the departments which I have visited. 
The surface of the country being generally flat, 
springs of water are few, and of course brooks 
are scarce ; the proportion of meadow-land be- 
comes, of consequence, but small, and pastu- 
rage scanty. The farmer is, therefore, neces- 
sitated to feed his herds with lucerne, saintfoine, 
and clover, and, having but small patches of 
these admirable succedaneums upon his lands, he 
husbands the produce to the greatest advantage, 
by mowing it from day to day, and transporting 
it to the stalls. 

In addition to which, it may be observed, that 
the intense heat of the summer forbids him to 
keep his herds abroad by day ; and, the wolves 
in the winter compel him to house them by 
night. What dung is formed upon his farnl is 
then formed under circumstances the most fa- 
vourable, and, larger quantities are collected 

together 



£20 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

together from a few meagre bullocks, than from 
twice the number feeding in an English home- 
stead. The importation of a few English habits 
would, were they engrafted npon this admirable 
system, yet double the quantity again ! 

The provision which is made for the suste- 
nance of the live stock is not less injudicious 
than its paucity; as long as the summer lasts 
want is seldom felt. Those succulent vegetables, 
just mentioned, grow with astonishing rapidity; 
but, no sooner do the frosts of winter arrest 
ttreir activity, than the effect must be painful ; 
and, if the preceding spring has been unfavour- 
able, famine inevitably succeeds. In some parts 
of Anjou I perceived tolerably large plantations 
of potatoes for the use of the cattle, but they 
could not possibly be adequate to the demand ; 
elsewhere I could discover no provision for win- 
ter fodder whatever. A field of turnips is not, 
I believe, to be found in all the western depart- 
ments of France. 

The hay, of which there is but little, is exe- 
crable from the execrable mode of preparing it, 
being first roasted in the sun-shine till every 
trace of foliage drops from the stalk, then trussed, 
and finally deposited in that state in the hay-loft, 
where, for want of compression, the little fra- 
grance which it brings from the field evaporates, 

and 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 221 

and the whole becomes a mere mortuum caput, 
alone calculated to tantalyze the cravening appe- 
tites of the hungry wretches who feed upon it. 
It is happy for these poor animals that the soil 
is as we have above described— such improvi- 
dence would raise an insuperable bar to agricul- 
ture in any other country but France. 

Here two little steers, or as many heifers, 
though poor and lean as those in Pharaoh's 
dream, are fully able to turn the soil, old lands 
excepted ; in cases of extreme emergency an ass 
is added ; and, once I saw a whole dairy of 
cows yoked together, with a male for a leader. 
The mode in which these patient sufferers are at- 
tached to the plough, or the waggon, does as 
much for them as can be done ; instead of that 
execrable piece of wantonness and cruelty which 
the English husbandman adheres to as tenaciously 
as though it were his birth-right— instead of that 
needless and enormous load of timber which he 
lays upon the withers of the ox, bruising its flesh, 
and weighing it down to the earth — instead of 
those pitiless bows which encircle its neck like a 
collar of iron, and appear to have been invented 
expressly with the view of adding torment to 
toil ; the Frenchman humanely reflecting, that 
if he has a right to the labour of his drudge, he 
has no right to render that labour unnecessarily 
irksome, passes a piece of wood, of about one- 

4 sixth 



£22 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

sixth of the weight of the English yoke, 
across the forehead of his cattle, having pre- 
viously neatly hollowed out the extremities of 
it to fit the mould of the head, and lined those 
hollows with a piece of woolly sheep-skin, to 
answer the purpose of a soft pad, or cushion. 
This light and easy yoke he braces to the horns 
with a small thong of leather, attaches the beam 
of his plough to the middle part of it, and the ani- 
mal is completely equipped for his labour * ; and, 
it is pleasing to remark with what facility this is 
done, and with what ease it is~ borne. As the 
cattle move along, instead of leaning the one 
against the other (distress painted in the eye), 
evidently to alleviate the irksome pressure, as it 
is impossible not to have remarkM as often as an 
English ox-team has been noticed at its daily la- 
bour ; the French team stands erect upon its legs, 
turns round with the greatest facility, and chews 
the cud as it chearfully paces along the furrow. 

The philosophy of this mode of harnessing the 
ox is perfectly correct; the main strength of 
animals of this genus is seated in the fore- 
quarters ; their mode of offence is to toss their 
adversaries, and nature has accordingly furnished 
the shoulders, legs, and neck with sinews ca- 



Vide plate I, Oxen-ploughing. 

pable 



:>- 



x 

& 







- 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 223 

pable of amazing exertion. In the English yoke 
and bow no advantage whatever is taken of this 
construction ; the sinews of the neck are of no 
utility whatever to the peasant ; and, those of 
the shoulder being bruised by the hard, unyield- 
ing bow, not an ounce of vigour is exerted more 
than is absolutely necessary to get forward ; and, 
this exertion must be produced by mere dint of 
the goad, the concern of the beast being not to 
dispatch his business, but to alleviate the painful 
pressure by which it is incommoded. Here, on 
the contrary, the bend of the neck preparatory 
to the toss is seized, and applied to the attached 
resistance, and, the force which would send a 
man aloft to the clouds, added to the force with 
which the English peasant ploughs his fields; 
hence we not unfrequently see teams of oxen 
dragging with ease, along the French roads, 
which, in England, would require teams of 
double strength to draw them. 

The carts in common use are constructed with 
equal judgment, and bespeak an acquaintance 
with the principles of mechanics which, peasants 
seldom possess ; they are drawn by horses, or 
oxen, with some little variation in the construc- 
tion, but the principle is in both cases the same. 
In the former instance the charete consists of 
two long shafts of wood, perhaps 1 8 feet long, 
which are laid parallel to each other, and con- 
nected 



224 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

nected together by cross bars, to form the bed, 
on which boards are laid as occasion requires ; 
the sides, fore, and tail-parts, are moveable ; 
and, the extremities to which the horse is to be 
attached, are shaved, and bent to the shape of 
an English shaft. At about one-third of the 
length of these beams the axle is fastened on in 
the usual mode ; and, at the second-third, im- 
mediately behind the tail of the horse, a roller 
is added, furnished with levers and long ropes. 
Every thing being in readiness, suppose the pea- 
sant wishes to remove an hogshead of wine, or 
cyder, from his cellar or quay on which it is de- 
posited, he turns the tail of his cart to the bur- 
den, and takes out his horse ; then lifting up 
the fore-parts of the shafts the hinder descends, 
and comes in contact with the ground close to 
the head of the cask ; fixing the two ends of his 
rope to the two extremities of the roller above- 
mentioned, he passes the bow of it around the 
farther end of the barrel, and, with his heavers, 
begins to wind it up along the main timbers of 
his carriage ; as soon as the center of gravity in 
the load arrives immediately perpendicular to 
the axle, the shafts come down, and this is the 
signal that the burden is then in its proper place ; 
with other contrivances he confines it there, and, 
as soon as this is accomplished, replaces the 
horse. 

Where 






v 



| 

Is 




A TOUR THROUGH FRAXCE. 225 

Where oxen are to be used, a pole, passing 
along between them, is fixed to the axle in the 
common mode ; to this two beams, connected 
together by cross bars as before, are added, 
which are also furnished with a roller and ropes, 
and turn upon the axle-tree by means of hooks 
and eyes, similar to those with which carts are 
usually attached to it ; on these beams the casks 
are wound up in the manner above described, 
and confined by the same means. 

Nothing can exceed the facility with which 
immense w r eights are thus removed ; nor, can 
a carriage, by any other mode, be so exactly 
loaded ; the cattle carry nothing, and exert 
themselves exactly in the mode which the mecha- 
nism of their construction points out as most ad- 
vantageous : add to which ,the carriage last-men- 
tioned possesses another singular advantage ; are 
you descending a mountain with a burden which 
will overpower your cattle ? you have only to lift 
up the fore part of your carriage, let the load 
slip back about 18 inches, confine it there, and 
go forward, with the tail dragging on the ground, 
and you will arrive at the bottom in perfect 
safety. This is the principle on which immense 
blocks of free-stone are brought down to Bath 
from the quarries in the hills. 

q ^Beyond 



226* A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

Beyond this, I know not, that the agricultural 
mechanics of France possess any thing which me- 
rits imitation ; the harness of their horses is as 
execrable as their carriages are judicious; the 
collar occupies full two-thirds of the animal's 
neck, and is constructed of an immense mass of 
-Straw, goats-hair, and wool, furnished with what 
are commonly called names of wood, six inches 
wide by one and a half thickness, the whole sur- 
mounted, as though France were as cold as Lap- 
land, by a woolly sheep-skin ; for what reason 
this odious apparatus has been adopted is to me 
incomprehensible — probably in this case, as in 
other fashions, ugliness has been improved upon 
ugliness, till it has attained its present accom- 
plished degree. When I first caught sight of a 
French cart-horse in full array, I could scarcely 
persuade myself that it was an horse, but con- 
ceived it to be some animal, perhaps an Egyp- 
tian buffalo, with which I was hitherto unac- 
quainted. 

The grounds having been abandoned for sq 
many years to the women, whose object was not 
to rival one another, but to obtain bread, will 
account for the slovenliness in which they are 
cropped ; no where will you see the different 
grains kept clean, i. e. distinct'; and, but seldom 
is there much attention paid to the nature of the 
soil in which they are sown. In many parts of 

Normandy 
4 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE* 227 

Normandy you will notice, in the unenclosed 
fields, pieces of wheat scarcely worth the reap- 
ing ; and, on lands immediately adjoining, bar- 
ley flourishing in the richest luxuriance, and re- 
turning a net profit, at least, of 50 per cent, 
greater than the wheat, and yet they go on sow- 
ing wheat still. Other grains are equally injudi- 
ciously disposed of, and, to crown the whole, 
they are not unfrequently sown altogether. 

Seldom do we notice a field of the last-men- 
tioned grain, especially in which there is not al- 
most an equal quantity of rye flourishing, a need- 
less and to be regretted waste ; for, as the rye 
ripens from three weeks to a month sooner than 
the wheat, when the latter is reaped almost the 
whole of the former is shed and lost — hence, 
perhaps, the reason why partridges are so asto- 
nishingly numerous in France. As we advance 
to the south, the oats become very thin and 
meagre — scarcely worth cultivation ; — turnips I 
have said there are none ; — potatoes are mode- 
rately plenty, and, upon the whole, are well 
managed ; — buck-wheat, chiefly used in feeding 
poultry, also abounds. 

In Anjou and Touraine maize is much culti- 
vated with it— the roofs of the peasants houses 
are covered, about the latter end of September 
with it, drying in the sun ; the ears are of a bright 
Q 2 golden 



228 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

golden yellow, and the effect is singular ; — lu- 
cerne is seen, but not in the quantity I had ex- 
pected ; — saintfoin is more rare— and clover rarer 
still. In every peasant's garden we perceive 
hemp and flax flourishing, the latter of which, 
especially, is prepared at home, and wrought up 
for the use of the family, and not unfrequently 
into linens of no contemptible quality. Previous 
to the revolution they were compelled to pit their 
flax, as in England, and for the same reason; 
that event having dissolved all law, and all or- 
der, and man becoming amenable to himself 
only, this salutary regulation has been broken 
through ; and, at the proper season for opera- 
tions of this kind, the banks of every brook, and 
of every river, stink like the pestilence, to the 
great annoyance of every passenger, and the 
utter destruction of the fish ; but, measures are 
now taking for the remedy of this serious evil — 
slowly and gradually, indeed, like cautious en- 
croachment — for the government fears to trench 
boldly upon the lawless liberty which has been 
seized : the time is, however, at hand, when it 
will assume a more imperious tone, and act with 
less insidiousness. 

One thing merits observation with regard to 
flax : in England, the richest lands are chosen 
for the cultivation of the plant, which is, I be- 
lieve. 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 229 

lieve, justly considered an impoverisher of the 
soil. In France, on the contrary, any soil what- 
ever serves the purpose, and not unfrequently 
that which is exhausted ; the consequence of 
which is, the English farmer plucks a large crop, 
the French peasant a good one. It is thus they 
obtain the fine stapled flax of which their cam- 
brics and lawns are made. 

Of the vines I have little to say. Arthur 
Young, in his French Tours, speaks much of 
them, as consuming all the manure of the coun- 
try. In the provinces through which I travelled, 
I not only saw no manure carried to the vine- 
yard, but was again, and again assured, that it 
would spoil the flavour of the wine — but this I 
am disposed to question, i. e. as a general. In 
pruning, the last year's wood is uniformly cut 
out, one eye, or bud alone excepted; upon the 
whole, I am convinced that the English agricul- 
turist has little to learn in France — but there is 
much which he might teach, Were the govern- 
ment sufficiently stable, sufficiently liberal, and 
enlightened, to induce him, with confidence, to 
embark his fortune in French lands, it might be 
an admirable speculation ; for, in the first in- 
stance, he could purchase them at a rate which 
would clear him 8 per cent, and upwards for his 
principal ; and, in the second, the superior cul- 
ture which he would introduce, with himself, 

Q. 3 woul4 



toO A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

would enable those lands to return crops, at 
least, one-third superior to the present average : 
add to which, he would there know nothing 
(comparatively) of the shackles which, in En- 
gland, enervate his exertions — nor be irritated 
by the cruel division of the fruits of his indus- 
try among those who have neither shared his 
toil, nor given him protection. 

In France there are no tythes — no church- 
rates— no poor-rates ; taxes there are, and must 
be wherever there is a government; but, com- 
pared with those he is accustomed to pay, they 
are as 4 to 40; nay, taking the circumstances 
above-mentioned into the calculation, I do not 
believe they are more than as 4 to four score : 
they have copied the most grievous of our im- 
positions — they have a land-tax, a window-tax, 
and "taxes upon luxury— the latter not a whit 
more accommodating than exactions of a similar 
description in England; but, taken together, 
the aggregate but just exceeds the sixth part of 
a man's rent-roll, i. e. 3s. 6d. in the pound. 

What is the inference from all this ? that 
France is the more eligible country in which to 
fix our abode ? -— Unquestionably not -— the 
country is fine— -the climate is delectable and sa- 
lubrious—the people are gentle, affectionate, 
amiable— -plenty abounds-— taxation is easy— 

and 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 231 

and neither tythes, poor-rates, nor church-rates 
are exacted ; and, to crown the whole, every 
man serves his maker according to the dictates of 
his own conscience, without penalty, and with- 
out fear— what then do you want more you will 
say ?— why, only one little circumstance more, 
which gives zest to every advantage, and, with- 
out which, all that we can possess is nothing— a 
circumstance which Britain proudly boasts, and 
which, I trust, it will boast till time shall be no 
more— a circumstance which has given it com- 
merce, trade, manufactures, and will maintain 
them in their envied pre-eminence as long as it 
shall last. While the sword peaceably rests in the 
scabbard, the valetujdenarian may seek, within 
the precincts of the republic, the health which 
the fogs and the intemperance of his native isle 
have impaired— the man of science and obser- 
vation may go thither to improve his taste by stu- 
dying the remains of accomplished antiquity— - 
and, he who courts relaxation, may amuse him- 
self with novelty and variety, and circulate a 
few of his superfluous guineas ;— but, he who is 
determined at all events, be the consequence 
what it may, to canvass all the proceedings of 
the political circles— to cavil at every thing he 
does not approve or comprehend, and sound the 
whoop of tyranny and oppression as often as the 
exigencies of the state demand supplies, had 
better stay at home— France is not the country 

0.4 in 



232 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

in which freedom of speech is tolerated ; one 
sovereign specific cures all curiosity— hushes all 
grumbling-— silences every complaint. Law is 
reduced within a very small compass ; there is no 
need there of " Statutes Abridged ;" Sic Volo of 
the grand consul has power to solve all difficul- 
ties—to quiet all the qualms of judge and jury 
—to constitute right or wrong ; under a military 
government, person and property are held in a 
sort of vassalage, and, as often as the one or 
the other are convenient to the haughty tyrant? 
who sits exalted upon the shoulders of the 
crouching multitude, the prayers, the tears of 
the widow and the fatherless become insignifi- 
cant as the drops of the morning, or the sigh- 
ing of the breeze; nay, should those hapless 
unfortunates, presuming upon the righteousness 
of their cause, dare to become sulky, or cla- 
morous---though there be no bastile wherein to 
encage them till they have learnt not to trouble 
their superiors with their idle and impertinent 
wrongs, yet there are other modes of reducing 
clamour to taciturnity equally effectual at hand. 
He, therefore, who sets a value proportioned to 
its worth upon the system of rights which his fore- 
fathers nobly wrested from a tyrant's hand— 
who defies even power to wrong him till his 
peers have given it leave— who can neither be 
taxed nor judged but by his peers— who glories 
in a constitution to which the prince and the 

peasant 






A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. Q33 

peasant are equally amenable, will never think of 
bartering privileges like these for aught the con- 
tinent can give him. What matters it that I can 
purchase lands cheaply as above stated — that my 
husbandmen toil for ten-pence per day — that pro- 
visions are 50 per cent, lower than in Britain — 
that taxation is easy — church-rates and tythes 
gone to their own place — and the poor main- 
tained as they ought to be — if I have no security 
from injury — if I dare not exert the privilege 
which the God of nature gave me — if the breath 
of a tyrant may annihilate my fortune in a mo- 
ment — reduce me to beggary, confine me in a 
dungeon where my complaints cannot be heard, 
or send me across the Atlantic to delve in the 
bogs and morasses of Cayenne ? — All, all I pos- 
sess besides is nothing — it is security, the darling 
of my soul, which renders what I attain worth 
enjoying : — take from me my security, and you 
deprive me of that which is more valuable than 
my life — it is security which gives the spur to my 
industry — it is security which cherishes the ad- 
venturous spirit of commerce — it is security 
which enables me to look forward to old age with 
cheerfulness and hope — and if I must resign my 
security I would as soon live in awe of the bow- 
string as of the guillotine. What is it that has 
introduced so many valuable arts and manufac- 
tures into Britain ?— Security. What is it even 
now which here gathers together as in one focus, 

men 



234 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

men of science and experiment from every civi- 
lized region of the earth ?— Security. Why do 
they fix upon Britain rather than their native 
countries, for developing their discoveries? 
Because in Britain only can they reap in security 
the reward of their labours: and while security 
shall be extended as hitherto, to person and pro- 
perty — while fortune and life are held not of the 
capricious will of a despot, but of the will of a 
nation, generous and just, though sometimes 
the dupe of accomplished craft, France will in 
vain endeavour to enter into competition with it. 
— It may spread abroad all its allurements — it 
may lay every possible restraint upon British 
merchandize, and endeavour to seduce its ma- 
nufacturers from the comfort and luxury in which 
they live — but in vain — till it offers them a go- 
vernment a-kin to the British — till the torpifying 
influence of despotism ceases to palsy and to af- 
fright exertion, it must be content to move on as 
it has done, and hold its sceptre over a herd of 
impoverished slaves ! Britons will turn away 
from the gilded bait, nor sacrifice the solid reali- 
ties they possess to any Utopian visions with 
which French philosophy may endeavour to be- 
guile them. 

One anecdote may serve to illustrate the truth 
of these positions, and calm the fears of those 

who 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 235 

who tremble for the arts and manufactures of 
their native isle. 

There was in London not long since, he may 
be there nozv, a French gentleman, soliciting a 
patent for the exclusive advantage of some capi- 
tal improvement in the art of making cables. — 
He had established a manufactory in France — 
but the moment that peace opened the access to 
this country, he came over for the purpose above 
stated. Being questioned how under all the 
local advantages which France possesses, he chose 
rather to establish himself here than there, his 
answer was striking. — " It is the security which 
England extends to all which determined him to 
fix upon it as the theatre of his exertions. At 
home, is there a fleet (says he) to be fitted out 
with dispatch — it matters not that my total ruin 
may be the consequence — my whole stock in 
trade is instantly laid under requisition — months 
and years of solicitation for payment may be un- 
availing : — when my connections are passed into 
other channels my family is reduced to poverty, 
and my patience exhausted ; I may account my- 
self happy if I can obtain of the minister of the 
marine the half of my demand, and perhaps am 
mocked with an order of government (like the 
proprietors of the late Rue de Necaise) for lands 
in St. Domingo by way of payment." 

The 



236 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

The case must be the same wherever the pro- 
duct of a manufactory may be necessary to the 
plans of the first magistrate ; and under such 
circumstances it is needless to say, that it can 
never flourish to any alarming extent. Attach- 
ment to the natale solum, and ignorant and bi- 
goted prejudices against every man who is not a 
Frenchman, may retain at home what manufac- 
turers it already possesses, and carry on a lan- 
guid trade ; but men of desperate fortunes alone, 
will join them from other countries — it would be 
insanity to translate either capital or talents, 
even from Prussia into France; and equally in- 
sane is the emigration of him whose sole fortune 
is his hands — encouragement like that he meets 
at home he must no where hope to find. In 
France it is absolutely impracticable to find it, 
A Frenchman has neither talent nor temper for 
business — he has no conception of system — he 
knows nothing of the division of labour — his 
workshop is a perfect chaos — all his means are 
employed to the greatest possible disadvantage — 
and he quits his trade precisely at the moment 
when it begins to be most improveable ; — of 
course while the Englishman sells you a decent 
broad cloth at one guinea the yard, the French- 
man cannot furnish one of equal quality at less 
than one guinea and a half ; and were the wages 
of labour in the one country equal to the wages 

of 



A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 237 

of labour in the other, he could not sell it for 
less than 50 per cent. more. 

With every advantage which the country pre- 
sents unto him, the French mechanic pines in 
poverty — his temperance alone preserves him 
from starving; and as those who toil on the 
western shores of the channel are not remarkably 
addicted to temperance, they cannot make a 
more egregious mistake than when they suppose 
they shall better their condition by emigration. 
Of the hundreds who have made the experiment, 
I question if there be a dozen who have not bit- 
terly lamented it. 

At the Gobelin Tapestry Manufactory, the 
highest wages given are three shillings and six- 
pence per diem ; by fair analogy in common ma- 
nufactories not more than one can be gained, 
Those then that are about to make the experi- 
ment, will do well to ask themselves before they 
move, can they live on one shilling per diem ? — 
true, provisions are cheap in the provinces, but 
not in the manufacturing towns. — At Rouen, 
beef is four-pence per pound— this is but half 
the price of it in England ; but then but one 
third of the wages are to be earned— -consequent- 
ly there is a balance of one-third against the la- 
bourer. 

5 At 



238 A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE. 

At Paris we remained about ten days, and 
though highly gratified with the beauties which it 
contains, its deformities were so predominant 
that without regret we quitted it. The route 
from hence to Calais has been a thousand times 
described: of it I have nothing more to say. 



THE END. 



DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. 

Loading and drawing the Wine Cart, to face the Title 

Oxen yoked to the plough, to face page 222 

Charete loading 224 

French cart 226 



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INDEX. 



A. 

PAGE 

AGRICULTURE of France 210 

Alencon ...- - 47 

Country of - 48 

Anecdote respecting the Government of France 234 

Angers 112, 126 

— fare from to Paris 131 

Anjou 125, 227 

Argentan 46 

Atheists 189 

Attention to Strangers »...- 181 

Aubugiste, the .« 6 



B 



Balbceuf 136 

Beaumont, road to 50 

BeefofParis 144 

Price of 237 

Beggars 9 

Berlin 10 

Blois 132 

Blues, the 75 

Bonaparte - „, 52, 161 

. 1 his consular Power _. 232 

Book, Post-master's, for entering Offences 8 

r Boulevards 



INDEX. 

PAG* 

Boulevards 19, 27, 145 

Bourgeois 154 

Bouliques . .. 14 

Bureau des Diligences 142 

« Des Passeports 184 

C 

Cabriolet, Construction of the Dieppe and Rouen 10 

— Harness of ....... 11 

Of la Fleehe and Angers _. 108 

Caen, Cathedral of 39 

• Description of... * . ib. 

——- Manufactories of 43 

Promenade at ib* 

Road to _ 56 

Ruinous Castle of 40 

Caisse de Commerce 147 

Cart-horses * 226 

Carts ..- * 223 

Caserne at Alenpon 48 

— Angers .„ 113 

Caen 40 

. Rouen 22 

Cattle > 218 

Celebration of the Nativity of the Republic 138 

Centinel, anxious Enquiries of a o 42 

Champ de Mars — 25 

Charete, Manner of loading the „ 224 

Chateaus 132, 137 

Chouans, the 97, 99, 118, 120, 12S, 132, 139 

Civilities 181 

Clemenee, Story and Wedding of 91 

Clergy, catholic 201 

the emigrant - - 155 

Climate of France - — 213 

Colbert 



INDEX. 

tAGB 

Colbert, Chateau of 137 

Cooks, French, - 144 

Cotton - 32 

Cruelties 115 

Cultivation . 227 

Custom-house, Treatment at the -----183 

D 

D , Story of : 69 

Deists 190 

Delauney ..- ----- 101 

Dieppe, Costume of 171, 185 

• Harbour of 3 

■ Houses of _ • 5 

— — Promenade of -. - 6 

Streets of - 5 

— — — Town of 4 

Dinners in France 168 

E 

Effects of the Peace 54 

Egalite, Philip 139 

Estampes 140 

Europe, Country de T 17 

Holeldel' ib. 

F 

F , Mons „ 84 

Falaise, Road to 45 

Fashions 171 

Fiddles on Sundays 195 

Flax 229 

Fleche, la, College of 104 

Description of it ib. 

r 2 Fleche, 



INDEX. 

Fleche, Female Seminary of 10$ 

Road to 103 

Foreigners, Reception of ..... .--- 181 

French Cattle 218 

— t Cooks -.---, 144 

Dinners ... ................. 168 

■ . — Equipage inconvenience of the ........ 6 

Government ,.., „ .... 232 

*r Manners .... ............. • 162 

Pilots . - 3 

Postilions ,„..„ -----^ 13, 16 

* Religion .. ,.._.......„. 189 

• Roads miserably accommodated ........ 1^ 

•. — ---» Sailors a wk wardnes of the ............ 3 

. Soil ..... ......... 21^ 

, Volatility 189 

, Wages 237 

. .... Weddings ........................ 92, 176 

G 

Gobelin Tapestry Manufactory 237 

Gold, Scarcity of ... 14-6 

Government ,. 232 

Grapes^ Mode of preparing .. - 129 

H 

Harnessing the Ox 222 

Havre de Grace .............. ...... 137 

Hay - 220 

Hotel de l'Europe ....... ........ ... 17 

des Invalids 166 

• des Victoires 38 

Hugonots 208 

Humbert, General 76 

. ..... j — - — : — ■— Anecdote of .............. 77 

Joaji 



INDEX. 

J 

JoanofArc ... „«.•.«.. -«..... 140 

Journey towards Rouen 6 

Juegne ---- • ......--..--..--•--«- — 53 

K 

Kindness of de la Rue 183 

of the municipal Officer 186 

Kindnesses at Rouen . . . . 187 

L 

Lark, shipped on board the — ............... 2 

Laval, Country-houses at » 102 

Country round .-.,.- ....--..-_..- 96 

— Description of P1 100 

— Manufactories of „ 103 

Legislature, Remarks on the T . 33 

Leve* , - 124. 

Liseux — - 32 

Country near it » 31 

Loir, Prefect of 114 

Louvre .«^. 1(S4j 

M 

Maize cultivated 227 

Manners of the French 162 

Mans, La _ 51 

Mayenne, Prefect of 1 ] 4 

Mechanics, awkwardness of the 37 

s — ,Charges of the _. 38 

. , Poverty of the 247 

Meslay - 98 

Municipal Officer, his Politeness, &c .- 186 

Naniz, 



INDEX. 

N 

FAOI 

Nantz, Journey from... . ....... 124. 

National Fete, grand .„ 138 

Notre-Dame, Church of. . 21, 26, 166 

Nuptial Bargains .................. ..... 176 

O 

Occurrences during the Voyage. . .. 2 

Orleannois 125 

Orleans 132 

, Arrival at . . . m 138 

, Cathedral of 139 

« , grand Palace of. ib. 

Owen, St. Church of 21 

Oxen used in Carts 223, 225 

yoked to the Plough 222 

P 

P M , Mons. interesting Anecdote of 117 

Packet, Reception of the first English after the 

Peace - 5 

Palais de Tribunal 165 

Royale 184 

Parental Feeling 42 

Paris, Customs, Inhabitants, &c. of...... . 1 

, et ses Curiosites .......... 148 

, Principal Commerce of 151 

Passports, Price of 188 

Peace, Effects of the .« -- . 5 

Peasantry 171,213 

Peculiarities 179 

Peregeaux, Mons 145 

Pilots, the French 3 

Post-horses farmed by Government 6 

Postillions, French ...* 13 

2 Postillions, 



INDEX. 

*AGt 

Postillions French, Indeliacy of the 15 

Postmaster, the only Person permitted to furnish 

Travellers with Relays ... . . 6 

• , his Book for entering Offences . 8 

Post-roads, Demands on the. . . , . m ib. 

, miserable Accommodations of. .... 14 

Price.of Meat ...._„ 237 

Priestcraft - 28, 205 

Priests m 186, 203 

Q 

Quolations from Sterne -. 159 160 

R 

Religion of France ...... ..... 189 

Republic, Nativity of the, celebrated . 138 

Revolutionists falsely accused 197 

Roads of France poorly accommodated ..-- 14 

Roche Talbot, la... 58 

Rouen 18, 125 

, Attentions at 185 

, botanical Garden of 26 

■■-, Manufactories of - — 24 

Markets ^... 26 

Ruins of a superb ecclesiastical Erection 29 

S 

Sabte , 53, 139 

f , Climate, Productions of 65 

, Park at 137 

Sailors, Awkwardness of the French 3 

Sans Culottes 179 

Sarte 56, 137 

Saumur 3 26 

- its Bridges, _ ib. 

Sees . ... „ 46 

^ Seine 



INDEX. 

FACE 

Seine, Waters of the » 161 

Soil of France 215 

Soleim, Convent of .... . .. .. 6l, 137 

Stallions used on the Post-roads .-..., 16 

i , Inconveniency of their Harnessing ... 17 

Story, apathetic • - 69 

T 

Taxes ^ 230 

Theatre de TOpera 166 

> Francois . _ . ...... ib. 

Thuilleries 163 

, Gardens of the . . ..... 16* 

Touraine . 125, 227 

Tours 126 

, Description of _ 130 

Travelling in France inconvenient .»,._. 6 

Tree of Liberty in the Champ de Mars •*«•-- 25 

V 

Venetian Horses, the celebrated... -. 163 

Victoire, the Story of - 80 

Victoires, Hotel des 38 

Vines ..., - 229 

Vineyards near the Loir - 123 

Voyage to the French Coast 3 

W 

Wages ~ 237 

Waldenses, the 208 

Wedding, Description of a 92. 

Weddings in general 17S 



030 227 869 6 



